Firefighters contain massive fires in Greece

Winds relented throughout fire-ravaged Greece today, enabling thousands of firefighters to tame a rash of massive fires that killed at least 64 people and obliterated record swaths of field and forests in six days.

The fire department said all major blazes were “generally receding,” but that authorities remained on high alert for possible rekindling ahead of a new heat wave forecast for week’s end.

In the southern Peloponnese peninsula, where 57 of the deaths were recorded, the fronts were contained and firefighters – backed by more than 20 water-dropping aircraft – were moving in to extinguish lingering blazes.

“The fires are no longer spreading,” said fire department spokesman Nikos Diamandis.

“We had a drop in the wind which we exploited.”

Temperatures also dropped to about 28 Celsius (82.4 Fahrenheit) in the region, compared to 41 Celsius (105.8 Fahrenheit) on August 24, the day the fires raged unchecked.

At least two major fires were still raging unchecked near the Albanian border to the north-west, while on the hard-struck island of Evia north of Athens, where the other seven deaths occurred, all blazes were under control.

Diamandis said no inhabited areas were threatened.