Greek firefighters mastered a forest fire on Monday morning, August 12th, which threatened homes in the eastern suburbs of Athens without causing any casualties, the authorities said.
Civil protection reported that the fire that broke out around 3 am was controlled early in the morning. The fire did not kill, as the police quickly evacuated the area and closed the local roads.
"Two houses were burned but there was nobody inside, now no residential area is in danger," Athens Deputy Governor Petros Filippou told reporters.
The fire broke out in the suburbs of Peania, in the pine forest at the foot of Mount Hymette, east of the Greek capital. "It was a huge fire with 20-meter-high flames near the houses," said head of civil defense Nikos Hardalias on Antenna TV.
More than 130 firefighters, helped by a water bomber, fought the fire to prevent it from spreading to areas where the population density is significant a few kilometers away.
On Friday, the emergency services alert level was set at a very high level by the head of civil protection due to the combination of scorching temperatures, high winds and drought. In fact, Greece, where the thermometer has risen to 40 degrees, has been hit in recent days by a series of forest fires.
A disaster, which had been raging for two days on the island paradise of Elafonissos, was controlled Sunday night, but it would have ravaged more than a quarter of this island in southern Peloponnese, according to firefighters, who evacuated a campsite and a hotel.
Fire soldiers fought more than 50 forest fires in Greece on Saturday. Two of them had declared themselves around Marathon, north of Athens, where a summer camp had to be evacuated.
With AFP