Watch: Smoke engulfs village as wildfire rages near Athens

A man efforts to extinguish wildfire in Hasia near Athens, Greece on August 22, 2023. A wildfire that erupted over the weekend in northeastern Greece raged for the fourth day with a report of another fire breaking out in a town near the capital Athens. Greece is battling fierce wildfires that continue to spread havoc. Picture: Costas Baltas/Getty Images

Thick, black smoke engulfed a village in Hasia, Greece on Tuesday as wildfires raged near Athens. According to local residents the fire broke out in four or five different places at the same time, setting the whole village alight. In Greece, gale-force winds complicated the efforts to control the fires.

Resident Vangelis Vathrakopoulos: "When the fire broke out, it broke out in four or five places at the same time. At the same time and expanded simultaneously. In other words, the whole village from one end, from the western end, to the eastern end of the village, had caught fire. We have never seen this before. We have never seen anything like this before. It burned houses, burned shops, just burned... I don't know what happened to a monastery that is up there. (There is) another monastery here which is currently burning. I don't know the details, I do not know what to tell you. All I know is that because I'm a resident over here, we all came and doused water on the houses because now the fire was within breathing distance."