In Greece, fires ravaged vegetation near Marathon

The trees are charred, the vegetation completely burned, and the ground blackened by the flames. Over several hundred kilometers, it is a spectacle of desolation that is offered to the inhabitants of Marathon and its surroundings. To support the Greek firefighters facing the last centers of the enormous fire, which has traveled nearly 40 000 hectares of vegetation north of Athens and its suburbs since Sunday August 11, French aid has finally arrived in Greece.

A woman was killed in this fire, dozens of people were injured and several houses were destroyed. These flames are also a real environmental disaster. Near Marathon, the forest was ravaged by the fires, while it was the last green lung near Athens, deplores Yanis. This resident came to see the disaster for himself: “Four years ago, the other side of the mountain already burned. It was the only forest we had left. And now, I think we have nothing left.”.

This tragedy was predictable according to the young man, who deplores the government’s lack of organization and its lack of action in the face of global warming.

“This winter, when I passed by here, I said to myself: ‘this forest is going to burn too’. And it is.”

International aid arrives too late, the population lashes out. Everything has already burned. Among these reinforcements, there are Italian, Czech and French firefighters. All were dispatched thanks to the activation of a civil protection mechanism of the European Union. The French contingent includes 180 firefighters and rescuers and 55 trucks.

The teams arrived late, at the end of the day, on Wednesday 14 August in a port in northwestern Greece. They reached the Athens region during the night and were finally deployed on Thursday morning, August 15, to the Greek firefighters, who are trying to prevent the fire from reigniting. A helicopter and a pilot from the civil protection have already been in the area since Wednesday.