Extract from ABC News
In short:
Greece's worst wildfire of the year has killed one person and reached Athens' suburbs.
A woman was found dead in a burned-out factory after the fire reached Vrilissia, around 14km from central Athens.
What's next?
Greece is expecting firefighting assistance from France, Italy and Czechia.
Greece's worst wildfire of the year has killed one person and reached Athens' suburbs.
Some 700 firefighters, backed by 200 fire engines and nine aircraft, were battling the blaze on Tuesday, local time.
The fire broke out on Sunday near the village of Varnavas, 35 kilometres north of Athens.
It has torched homes, vehicles and swathes of bone-dry forest since.
Local newspaper Proto Thema said the damage spanned 100 square kilometres and 100 homes.
The blaze leapt from Varnavas into suburbs of Athens on Monday, choking the city with smoke and ash and stirring panic in neighbourhoods that had not seen such a fire so close in decades.
It scaled Mount Pentelikon, also known as Mount Pentelicus, which overlooks the capital, and moved towards suburbs that are home to tens of thousands of residents, including Nea Penteli, Palaia Penteli, Patima Chalandriou and Vrilissia.
Flames as high as 25 metres tall were spotted.
Three hospitals were forced to evacuate, and there were power cuts in parts of the wider Athens region.
Mobile phones in the area got at least 30 push alerts warning people to flee.
"The wind would go in one direction and then in the other," Dioni resident Spyros Gorilas said.
"The smoke was suffocating. You couldn't see. Your eyes teared up. You couldn't breathe."
"Even the helicopter that dropped water, you couldn't see it."
"You could only hear it."
Police have helped evacuate more than 250 people. Some residents spent the night in shelters. Sports halls and hotels were also turned into evacuation centres.
Authorities said some people who refused to leave their homes later became trapped and required rescuing, endangering the lives of firefighters.
Passenger ferries heading to the port of Rafina, north-east of the capital, were diverted.
The Athens Medical Association warned those with chronic conditions, the elderly, pregnant women, children and those with respiratory and heart problems to be extra cautious.
'Many active localised blazes'
Fire department spokesperson Colonel Vassileios Vathrakogiannis said firefighters were longer battling a single front but "many active localised blazes", mostly around Marathon and Pendeli.
The Marathon area was the site of a famous battle between Greeks and Persians in 490 BC. It hosts a museum and archaeological site but there were no immediate reports of damage to either.
One woman was found dead in a burned-out factory after the fire reached Vrilissia, around 14km from central Athens, the fire department said.
"Thirty-five years living here, a fire had never reached this area," resident Meletis Makris said.
"My house was utterly destroyed, even the walls fell down. There's nothing left," Vrilissia resident Sakis Morfis added.
"The only thing I cared about was saving my dogs, so I left everything [else] behind."
At least 66 people have been treated for injuries. Two firefighters have also been hurt.
Greece has activated the European Civil protection mechanism and is expecting France, Italy and Czechia to provide aircraft and firefighters.
Spain and Türkiye have also offered help.
Greece on high alert for wildfires through to Thursday
The country will remain on high fire alert until Thursday amid strong winds and temperatures forecast to reach up to 40 degrees Celsius.
Recent lighter winds and firefighting efforts have reportedly helped reduce the fire's intensity.
Costas Tsigkas, head of the association of Greek firefighter officers, told state television ERT that firefighters were "at a better level across the front" but were expecting winds to worsen the fire again.
"Every hour that passes will be more difficult," he said.
The cause of the wildfire has not yet been determined.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is expected to chair a ministerial meeting later on Tuesday.
The Greek government has announced compensation and relief measures for those who have lost homes or property.
Opposition parties accused the government of not doing enough to prevent the disaster.
Syriza, the leftist main opposition party, questioned the number of aircraft battling the blaze.
The socialist Pasok party said Greeks were paying the price of poor fire prevention policies.
The destruction has revived memories of the July 2018 fires in Mati, a coastal area near Marathon, where 104 people died in a tragedy later blamed on evacuation delays and errors.
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 north-eastern Greece and were caught by a massive blaze that burned for more than two weeks.
Wildfires have been a common feature of Greek summers for years, but climate change has brought hotter weather and less rain — ideal conditions for large-scale fires.
Dozens of other wildfires also broke out in several parts of Greece on Monday.
"Firefighters have been working at full tilt for months," Nikos Lavranos, head of Greece's main firefighters' union, said of the situation.
"They are exhausted."
"The wildfire had all the characteristics that we, as firefighters, don't want a forest fire to have. A combination of hot, dry and windy [conditions]."
"It was extremely aggressive, difficult to manage and unpredictable."
The southern European country experienced its warmest winter on record this year and was on track for its hottest summer, with scant rain in many areas for months.
The worsening situation was mirrored across southern Europe, including in Spain and the Balkans.
Wires
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