Athens wildfires: 80ft flames force evacuation of children’s hospital

People flee their homes and residents in two monasteries are also told to leave as hundreds of firefighters battle huge blazes

Hundreds of firefighters are battling a major forest fire on the outskirts of Athens where 80ft high flames have forced the evacuation of hospitals and homes.
The country’s worst wildfire this year spread into the Athens suburbs on Monday, as it torched trees, homes and cars overnight and choked busy roads with smoke and ash.
The government called in help from fellow EU members to tackle the fire that is burning out of control for a second day, fanned by gale force winds that pushed it from the wooded hills north of the city.
Firefighters said flames, threatening apartment blocks, schools and businesses, had reached the deepest into the capital for over two decades.
Officials said that thousands of people living around Athens fled their homes on Monday as the huge wildfire crept closer to the capital despite efforts to contain the blaze.
At least 30 areas were forced to evacuate residents, government officials said, along with at least three hospitals as parts of the wider Athens region lost power.
A children’s hospital and a military medical facility in Penteli were evacuated at dawn, while residents in two monasteries and a children’s home were also told to move to safety.
Police have helped evacuate more than 250 people and some residents spent the night in shelters.
The fire department said 700 firefighters backed by volunteers, 190 fire engines and 33 waterbombing aircraft were battling the flames, with 15 helicopters providing aerial support.
The number of people treated for smoke inhalation now stands at 13.
Authorities ordered at least five more communities and two hospitals northeast of Athens to leave on Monday after eight nearby villages were told to evacuate over the weekend. 
A 20-mile long wall of flames, more than 80 feet (25 metres) high in places, is moving towards the capital, the ERT public broadcaster reported.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister, cut his holiday short and returned to Athens on Sunday evening to deal with the crisis.
The fire is burning mainly on two separate fronts, with some parts in particularly difficult-to-reach areas on a mountain northeast of Athens, said Vassilis Kikilias, the climate crisis and civil protection minister.
He added that authorities are dealing with “an exceptionally dangerous fire, which we have been fighting for more than 20 hours under dramatic circumstances”.
Greece’s coastguard ordered all ferries going to and from the nearby port of Rafina, which serves mainly the Cycladic islands and Crete, to be diverted to the port of Lavrion due to the fire.
Authorities in nearby suburbs opened at least one sports hall and were providing rooms in hotels for evacuees, while yet more suburbs were put on standby for potential evacuation.
Conditions have been exacerbated by strong winds that quickly drove the fire out of control. The fire sent a blanket of smoke over the centre of the Greek capital, darkening the sky.
Intense #wildfires 🔥 have broken out north of #Athens, seen here by our MTG-I1 satellite yesterday 11.08.Fire hotspots & thick smoke plume visible from space between 11:00 – 17:30 UTC.Evacuations are in place as emergency workers try to keep fires under control. #ClimateCrisis pic.twitter.com/cGOBj3axqv
“[It’s] the first time ever the fire has come here,” said Melina Kritseli, 40, a civil servant living in a two-storey white house in Patima Halandriou, another Athens suburb that was evacuated.
“I took my children to a friend’s house to be safe,” she told AFP as her husband hosed the ground and grass outside their house.
Television footage showed several cars gutted by fire and the roofs of stately homes burning as water-bombing helicopters roared overhead.
“The situation is dramatic,” Natassa Kosmopoulou, the Penteli mayor, told news portal.
“A school and homes are on fire, and I can see the fire coming towards the town hall,” she said.
To the north, at the epicentre of the fire, firefighters and residents took stock of the damage: abandoned homes and vehicles gutted by fire; hillsides blackened; trees reduced to sticks.
“Thirty years I was building all this,” said 81-year-old Vassilis Stroubelis as he stood in the entrance of his damaged home. “Thirty years and bam.”
Eight people have been taken to hospital with respiratory problems and authorities opened the Olympic stadium in northern Athens to house those fleeing.
“Civil protection forces battled hard throughout the night, but despite superhuman efforts, the fire evolved rapidly,”  Vassilis Vathrakogiannis, a fire brigade spokesman, said.
“At this moment it has reached Mount Pentelicus and is headed in the direction of Penteli,” he added.
The historic town of Marathon is among the areas evacuated as mayor Stergios Tsirkas said the town was facing a “biblical catastrophe”.
“Our whole town is engulfed in flames and going through difficult times,” he told the Skai television channel.
Brick homes on roads leading out of Marathon had huge black stains up the sides of their walls left by the flames. The roofs on many had also been burnt away.
“Everything is burning,” said Giorgos Tsevas, a resident of Polydendri village. “I have 200 olive trees there but now they are gone.”
At Dione, the fire burned cars and crept up apartment blocks. Some residents said they fled in their cars just as the flames sped up to their homes.
People in Penteli could only watch helplessly as fierce summer winds pushed flames toward their homes and up the slopes of Pentelicus.
“It hurts, we have grown up in the forest, we feel great sadness and anger,” said 24-year-old resident Marina Kalogerakou, her mouth and nose covered by a red bandana as she poured a bucket of water on a burning tree stump.
Another resident, Pantelis Kyriazis, crashed his car as he tried to escape the encroaching flames. “I couldn’t see, I hit a pine tree and this is what happened,” he said, gesturing towards his damaged car and nursing a bleeding elbow.
Gérald Darmanin, the French interior minister, said France would send a helicopter, 180 civil security personnel and 55 fire engines.
Greece’s civil protection authority said Italy was sending two water-dropping planes and the Czech Republic was sending 75 firefighters and 25 vehicles, while Spain and Turkey were also finalising reinforcements to send to Greece.
Meteorologists and government officials have warned of the heightened danger of wildfires because of weather conditions from Sunday until Thursday, with half of the country placed under a “red alert” for wildfire hazard.
The Mediterranean country is exceptionally vulnerable to summer blazes, with this season seeing fires burn daily.
After the warmest winter on record, Greece also experienced its hottest June and July since reliable data collection began in 1960.
Scientists warn that human-induced fossil fuel emissions are worsening the length, frequency and intensity of heatwaves across the world.
The rising temperatures are leading to longer wildfire seasons and increasing the area burnt in the flames, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Last year, wildfires in Greece killed more than 20 people, including 18 migrants who became trapped by the flames as they trekked through a forest in northeastern Greece and were caught by a massive fire that burned for more than two weeks.
In 2018, a massive fire swept through the seaside town of Mati, east of Athens, trapping people in their homes and on roads as they tried to flee in their cars. More than 100 people died, including some who drowned trying to swim away from the flames.