Firefighters in Greece gain ground against wildfires near Athens

Firefighters in Greece gained ground Tuesday against a wildfire burning for a fifth day on the outskirts of Athens, as easing winds allowed water-bombing aircraft back into the skies in force.

More than 30 aircraft joined 575 firefighters battling the blaze near the coastal village of Psatha, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) northwest of the capital, the fire service said.

“The situation has clearly improved compared to the last few days, but there are still many scattered hotspots, which means that forces remain on site to prevent a possible flare-up," fire department communications chief Vassilis Vathrakoyannis told AFP.

Large areas of scorched terrain still concealed active and smouldering pockets that could quickly reignite if the wind picks up again.

"It's a huge area and there could be a flare-up again at any moment," deputy fire department spokesman Yiannis Artopios had earlier told state TV ERT.

Most of the destruction from the fire, which broke out Friday, was in villages on the Gulf of Corinth including Porto Germeno, where scores of homes are thought to have been destroyed or damaged.

At Porto Germeno on Tuesday, police had set up checkpoints controlling access to the area as authorities assessed the damage.

Hillsides once covered in pine forest have been reduced to ash around the village, a popular summer retreat for Athenians. Dozens of homes stood gutted and abandoned, while a charred fire engine lay among the wreckage nearby, an AFP reporter saw.

The greater Athens region, neighbouring Evia and several Aegean islands, including Chios and Lesbos, have been placed under near-maximum fire risk for Wednesday, according to the civil protection ministry.

'Need to be careful'

"This is the period where we usually see the biggest fires. Therefore we need to be very careful until August 20-25," National Observatory research director Kostas Lagouvardos told ERT, warning temperatures were set to rise during the week.

The wildfires have claimed the lives of five firefighters since last week.

On Sunday, two Bell helicopters collided while operating west of Athens, killing a Danish pilot and his Greek co-pilot. Three other firefighters died in Crete and the Peloponnese last week.

Other fires across the country, including one on the Ionian island of Cephalonia, had largely been contained, the Greek fire service said.

"I would say that it is definitely one of the worst fire crises I've seen in the past, maybe eight to 10 years," Theodore Giannaros, a senior wildfire meteorologist at the National Observatory, told AFP.

Winds at the end of July were the strongest recorded in 15 years, the observatory said, adding that the Porto Germeno fire alone has scorched more than 13,000 hectares of forest and farmland.

Police have made two arrests, including a local mayor, over the blaze, believed to have started from a faulty power cable.

More than 30 people have been detained overall in connection with fires allegedly caused either deliberately or by negligence, including the mayor of the tourist island of Paros over a landfill fire last week.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has warned that Greece faces "extremely difficult" days ahead as high temperatures and dry conditions continue to fuel fires.

Like much of the Mediterranean, Greece has experienced increasingly frequent and intense wildfires that scientists link to climate change.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)