Fire recedes from Athens suburbs

Officials and residents struggled to assess damage from a massive forest fire that began to subside tonight after burning houses, cars and animals, and forcing the evacuation of two medical clinics near Athens.

Officials said a new front broke out in the area of Dionysos this afternoon but the worst of the blaze was under control.

However, variable winds and approaching nightfall – which prevents firefighting aircraft from operating – meant the situation remained perilous.

Meanwhile four other large fires raged in southern and western Greece.

Fire officials said the blaze that broke out on the slopes of Mount Penteli on Athens’ northern edge had quickly approached the capital’s wealthy suburbs of Politia, Melissia, Nea Penteli, Vrilissia and Kifissia, fanned by gale-force winds.

Flames extended across several miles of hillside terrain, torching pine forests and sending acrid smoke over much of Athens.

The smoke could be seen as far away as the Saronic Gulf islands, dozens of miles south of Athens.

“Many houses have been destroyed, I can’t say how many … The situation is dramatic,” said Melissia Mayor Manolis Grafakos.

Vassilis Kanoussis, press officer for Kifissia municipality, said “The fire is abating in Politia and Kifissia.”

“We have no idea of the damage because first we must extinguish the fire,” he added.

Television footage showed huge flames burning near apartment buildings and panicked residents trying to fight the fire with garden hoses.

One fire engine was destroyed, the fire department said, and one firefighter was taken to hospital with a leg injury.

About 130 patients from a nearby psychiatric facility were evacuated, as were 20 from a second medical clinic. A number of sheep also died in the blaze.

Nikos Diamandis, a fire department spokesman, said the blaze had started simultaneously in four different points on Mount Penteli and had spread rapidly because of gale force winds that hampered firefighting efforts.

The blaze caused power pylons to explode, leaving parts of the northern suburbs without electricity for hours. Electricity supplies to large areas of the capital were reduced, the Public Power Corporation said.

Parts of Greece and southern Europe have been charred by hundreds of forest fires this summer in tinderbox conditions.