Experts warn of desertification of Attica as nearly half of surrounding forest lost in recent years.
Northeast Attica in Greece found itself at the mercy of the wildfires once again this year.
After two days of fighting fires that stretched across tens of kilometers, firefighters faced and continued to battle flare-ups in multiple areas on the third day.
Some areas remain without water and electricity, as the damage to the infrastructure is extensive. One of the areas seriously affected is Varnavas, where the fire started.
“I saved what I could from the house. They told us that the electricity will come back in about a month and we don’t know anything about the water,” said a local resident.
Experts are now warning that the risk of desertification of Attica is huge as it is estimated that 40% of the surrounding forest has been lost in recent years with the fiery nightmare repeating itself.
The damage tally has already started and the concern remains as temperatures are still very high.
“It is a scary experience, of course, and it is traumatic to see what is happening to your neighbours, their property, and the beautiful mountain we live in. It is very sad,” said a local woman who had to evacuate.
The fire, passing through a huge forest area of about 20 kilometres, reached the urban fabric. In the suburb of Vrillisia, the flames threatened from three different fronts.
‘’The forest had been cleared of low vegetation and pruning had also been done in the upper part of the pines, it is a pruning of the trees at 2-2.5 metres, in order not to have all this flammable material and not to spread the fire in a way that would create very big problems’,” explained the Mayor of Vrilissia Giannis Pismisis.
Many houses were set ablaze and destroyed in Nea Penteli as well. The city’s closed gym and a school next to it have suffered serious damage.
The wildfire burned into the northern suburbs of Athens, triggered multiple evacuations and left at least one person dead.
With strong winds that had fanned the flames on Sunday and Monday dying down overnight, the fire department said the fire no longer had any active, advancing fronts and firefighters focused on extinguishing hundreds of slow-burning areas.
Reinforcements of water-dropping aircraft and firefighters were arriving from abroad after Greece requested assistance from Europe’s joint disaster response mechanism.
Dozens of homes and businesses were reported to have burned, although authorities did not yet have an exact number. Winds strengthened again on Tuesday afternoon, but no new major flare-ups were reported.
The European Union’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service, which provides mapping services for natural disasters using satellite images, said that by Monday the blaze had burned 8,500 hectares.