Greek wildfires near Athens enter fifth day as firefighters battle scattered hotspots

Firefighting efforts

The fire, which broke out on Friday 31 July near the coastal settlement of Psatha about 60 km northwest of Athens, entered its fifth day on Tuesday. More than 575 firefighters, 12 water bombers, 20 helicopters and over 30 aerial means in total were deployed, supported by reinforcements from Romania and France. Operations concentrated on three critical fronts: south towards Louba, southeast towards the Panachrantou monastery, and northeast towards Agia Paraskevi and Agios Nektarios.

We are on the ground for the fifth consecutive day facing this very difficult fire.

Overnight a slight improvement in weather allowed crews to contain numerous scattered hotspots, but reignitions followed and at least three localities north of the industrial town of Megara were evacuated on Tuesday morning. Civil Protection kept the fire risk at level 4 out of 5, with maximum temperatures expected to hover around 37°C until Wednesday and strong, dry winds blowing from the Aegean Sea.

Damage and evacuations

The seaside town of Porto Germeno, 65 km west of Athens, was among the hardest-hit areas. Police set up cordons to control access while damage assessments got under way. An AFP journalist on the scene described large swaths of formerly wooded land devoured by flames and dozens of houses reduced to rubble; a burned-out fire truck lay among the debris on the road leading into the village.

Across the wider region, 13,000 hectares of pine forest, scrubland and agricultural terrain have burned near the capital, pushing the nationwide total to 30,000 hectares since the start of 2026. Fires were also reported on Crete, in the Peloponnese and on the islands of Paros and Cephalonia, though authorities said a dozen blazes elsewhere in the country had been brought under control on Tuesday.

Casualties

Five firefighters have lost their lives in the space of a week. Two crew members of a firefighting helicopter died on Sunday near Psatha after a mid-air collision with a second helicopter; the two crew of the other aircraft survived. Both helicopters were Bell models originating from the United States, and the circumstances of the accident are under investigation.

Political criticism

The conservative government of Kyriákos Mitsotákis, in power since 2019, came under sharp attack in the Greek press. The left-leaning daily Efsyn ran the front-page headline "More dangerous than the fire," accusing the administration of wasting seven years and failing to strengthen the fire service. The news site News247 noted in an editorial that the government had the opportunity and the means, through the EU recovery fund, to lay the foundations of a "Greece 2.0" but chose not to invest in fire prevention.

Outlook

Fire service communication chief Vassilios Vathrakoyannis acknowledged an improvement but stressed that the danger was far from over.

The fire situation is clearly improved compared to recent days, but there are still many scattered hotspots, so forces remain on site.

Spokesperson Yannis Artopios warned that vast areas still contained active hotspots or embers requiring constant vigilance, because a strong gust of wind could be enough to trigger new outbreaks. With the heatwave persisting and no significant rainfall in the forecast, authorities remained on high alert across greater Athens and the nearby island of Euboea.