Fires tear through tinder-dry Greece

By Anthee Carassava
Published: August 26, 2007

ATHENS: Fires raged across Greece on Sunday, bearing down on hamlets near ancient Olympia in the south a day after the government declared a nationwide state of emergency. At least 57 people have died in the past three days, according to the national fire brigade.

Thick black smoke billowed above the ruins of Olympia as dense pine and cypress forests burned around the site of the first Olympic Games. Firefighters evacuated nearby villages on the southern Peloponnese peninsula.

Flames were about three kilometers, or less than two miles, from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios, a 2,500-year-old monument near the town of Andritsaina in the southwestern Peloponnese, said the town's mayor, Tryphon Athanassopoulos.

In some cases, villages were trapped within walls of flames, cut off from firefighters and, at times, from firefighting aircraft grounded because of high winds.

The Greek fire brigade said it was fighting 44 fires stretching more than 160 kilometers across the Peloponnese, the island of Evia and near Athens.

Vassilis Adamopoulos, a spokesman for the fire brigade, said firefighters had been helped Sunday because the winds had died down. One of the fires outside Athens was extinguished, but several were still burning.

"The situation is extremely critical," Adamopoulos said. "None of these fires is under control."

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