IHT : Fires in Greece force helicopter evacuation

Fires in Greece force helicopter evacuation

The Associated Press | August 26, 2007

ATHENS, Greece: Firefighters sent helicopters and buses Monday to evacuate more than two dozen villages threatened by towering walls of flames that have left 63 people dead in Greece's worst wildfire disaster in memory.

From the northern border with Albania to the southern island of Crete, fires ravaged forests and farmland. Residents used garden hoses, buckets, tin cans and branches in desperate — and sometimes futile — attempts to save their homes and livelihoods.

In some villages, firefighters sent helicopters or vehicles to evacuate the residents, only to find people insist on staying to fight the blaze.

A helicopter airlifted five people to safety Monday from the village of Prasidaki in southern Greece, fire department spokesman Yiannis Stamoulis said. Another was sent to the village of Frixa, but the residents refused to leave, he said.

The destruction was so extensive that authorities said they had no way of knowing how much has burned — or how many people had been injured.

Fueled by strong, hot winds and parched grass and trees, the fires have engulfed villages, forests and farmland, and scorched woodland around Ancient Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic games. New blazes broke out faster than others could be brought under control, leaving behind a devastated landscape of blackened tree trunks, gutted houses and charred animal carcasses.

The destruction and deaths have infuriated Greeks — already stunned by deadly forest fires in June and July — and appears likely to dominate political debate before early general elections scheduled for Sept. 16. Many blamed the government for failing to respond quickly enough.

The government — which declared a state of emergency over the weekend — said arson might have been the cause, and several people have been arrested. A prosecutor on Monday ordered an investigation into whether arson attacks could come under Greece's anti-terrorism and organized crime laws.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said it could not be coincidence that so many fires broke out simultaneously in so many areas of the country.

In the past, unscrupulous land developers have been blamed for setting fires in an attempt to circumvent laws that do not allow construction on forest land. Greece has no land registry, so once a region has been burned, there is no definitive proof of whether it was initially forest, farm or field.

"It is rather late now, but the state should designate these areas to be immediately reforested, map them and complete the forest registry without further delay," said Yiannis Revythis, chairman of the association of Athens real estate agents. "If an area is officially designated as forest land, who will burn it as it will still count as forest land?"

But it was in no way clear who — if anyone — was responsible for the massive fires that have destroyed much of Greece over the past four days.

"I think it is unlikely that land development was an incentive behind the arson," said Nikos Bokaris, head of the Panhellenic Union of Forestry Experts. "The afflicted areas are not prime targets for construction. These are mountain areas where land is not that valuable."

Across the country, scenes of devastation unfolded.

A woman killed on Friday, her charred body found with her arms around her four children, might have been safe if she had stayed in her home. It was the only house left untouched by the flames in the village of Artemida in the western Peloponnese. The house's white walls and red tile roof were unscathed, surrounded by blackened earth.

Greece's few remaining patches of forest rapidly were being rapidly incinerated, and the environmental consequences will be dire, experts said.

The worst of the fires are concentrated in the mountains of the Peloponnese in the south and on the island of Evia north of Athens. Strong winds blew smoke and ash over the capital.

"This is an immense ecological disaster," said Theodota Nantsou, WWF Greece Conservation Manager. "We had an explosive mixture of very adverse weather conditions, tinder-dry forests — to an extent not seen for many years — combined with the wild winds of the past two weeks. It's a recipe to burn the whole country."

Borakis said authorities would have to move quickly in order to avert further environmental problems.

"Authorities will have to take measures to forestall ground erosion," he said. "Luckily, in the broader area there are no large cities that will bear the brunt of floodwaters from the mountains. There will be more floods, but the waters will be carried through the natural system of watercourses and ravines to the sea."

The government appealed for help from abroad, and 19 countries were sending planes, helicopters and firefighters, including France, which dispatched four water-tanker planes, and Russia, which was sending three helicopters and an amphibian plane. The U.S. was discussing with the Greek government what form of assistance to send, U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

Desperate residents called into television stations for help from a firefighting service already stretched to the limit.

Associated Press writers John F.L. Ross in Artemida and Nicholas Paphitis in Athens contributed to this report.