For the past three days, one of the largest fires in Greece in the northern parts of Athens has been raging.
In several suburbs the air is filled with thick black smoke and on the ground lies a thin layer of ash.
Thousands of people have been evacuated and on Saturday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited a fire station in the capital.
- When this nightmare summer is over, we will repair the damage as soon as we can, Mitsotakis says according to Reuters.
He points out that the government's most important work continues to be to protect human lives, but that those affected will be compensated for the damage.
Two people have so far died in the fires, of which a volunteer firefighter reports to the BBC.
Winds make firefighting difficult
More than 700 firefighters, with additional reinforcements from Cyprus, France and Israel, have been deployed just to fight the fire north of Athens.
They also have the army and several water bombing aircraft to help.
But strong winds in combination with temperatures above 40 degrees for a whole week make the fires difficult to control.
In the last 24 hours, the rescue service has fought more than 400 forest fires across Greece, according to Reuters.
The fire crosses the country's second largest island
In addition to the large fire outside Athens, one of the largest forest fires is raging on the nearby island of Evia, which is the country's second largest after Crete.
There, the fire has spread from one end of the island to the other.
On Friday evening, hundreds of islanders were evacuated with the help of ferries and fishing boats when the fire in some places reached all the way to the shoreline.
- We are talking about the apocalypse, I do not know otherwise how to describe it, says Sotiris Danikas, who works on the coast guard on the island to the BBC.
No relief seems to be in sight yet.
The heat wave is the worst in Greece in 30 years and temperatures are expected to remain at high levels next week as well.