With 46 dead yesterday afternoon and the toll expected to climb, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis declared a state of emergency, saying the forest fires 'can't be a coincidence'. He vowed that the arsonists would be found. Within hours police had arrested a suspect.
'All regions of the country are declared in a state of emergency in order to mobilise all means and forces to face this disaster,' he said in a televised address to the nation. 'We are living a national tragedy,' said Karamanlis.
He called an extraordinary cabinet meeting after visiting villages that had been reduced to cinders in the southern Peloponnese. With at least two tourists among the dead - and hundreds more holiday-makers threatened - Karamanlis urged Greece's EU partners to despatch more water-dropping planes and helicopters, saying it was a crisis Greece could not handle alone.
It was, he said, a day of 'national mourning' that would not be forgotten soon. All state buildings, including parliament, were ordered to fly flags at half-mast.
'These are very difficult times for all of us,' said Karamanlis, whose government has faced criticism for its handling of an unrivalled spate of forest fires that has wrought destruction across Greece this summer.
'I wish to express my deep grief over the lost lives. We are fighting against heavy odds, on many fronts and under particularly tough conditions.'
With new fires erupting almost hourly and authorities battling some 170 blazes from the Ionian Sea in the west, Ioannina in the north and the Peloponnese in the south, firefighting services have been stretched to the limit - despite the military being mobilised by the government. Gale-force winds known as the meltemi, which sweep across Greece in August, were also hampering efforts to extinguish the flames.
By late afternoon yesterday, as fires erupted on the fringes of Athens, threatening buildings, forcing the evacuation of monks from a monastery and closing the national highway, a wall of flames stretched across the Peloponnese with witnesses describing harrowing scenes.
Officials said the devastation was on a scale not seen in peacetime. Entire villages looked as though they had been vaporised, people and livestock incinerated. People who had tried to escape fires engulfing homesteads were found dead in their burnt-out cars. In one village near the Peloponnesian town of Zaharo, police discovered the bodies of a mother and her four children.
'There's absolute pandemonium here. It's like a war zone. In a single night everything we know has been destroyed,' Nikos Kakovessis, a resident of the town, said. 'People have lost their homes, their cattle, everything they own. May God cast his hand to stop this evil. May the worst be over.'
Frightened locals, authorities said, had been joined on the beaches of the peninsula by tourists forced to flee hotels and resorts at the peak of the holiday season. Many had fled the flames with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. With thousands expected to spend last night outside, nearby tavernas were providing tablecloths for evacuees to sleep on.
Greece has seen more than 300 fires in the past three months. The ecological disaster has dented the popularity of the ruling Conservatives, who have called early elections to take place on 16 September.
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(Extra info)Arson is often suspected, mostly to clear land for development. No construction is allowed in Greece in areas designated as forest land, and fires could be set to circumvent the law by disputing the status of the area.
Meanwhile:
States, feds try to keep up with wildfires
With major fires burning in more than a dozen states and officials on high alert for more, authorities are scrambling to contain the blazes and keep new ones from igniting, despite unfavorable weather and strained resources.
The worst fires have hit the West, where stifling heat, drought conditions and frequent thunderstorms bringing wind and lightning have proven a disastrous natural combination. More than 1 million acres already have been torched in Idaho and Montana, where crews from around the country battled 36 large blazes as of Aug. 17, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). Oregon, Washington and Wyoming also faced at least three major fires each, and conflagrations continued in states as far afield as Alaska and Hawaii.
The NIFC, which coordinates firefighting efforts nationwide from its base in Boise, Idaho, last month raised the nation’s wildfire preparedness level to its highest degree, freeing up additional help from cooperating agencies at home and abroad. Canada, for example, is expected to send units to assist in Idaho and Montana. At least 6.1 million acres across the United States have burned so far this year, according to statistics compiled by the NIFC and updated daily.
“Every year the fire season is longer and worse than the year before, and we’re seeing that again this year,” says Steven Kline, director of federal forestry programs with the National Association of State Foresters in Washington, D.C.
Governors in at least 11 states, most of them in the West, have made emergency declarations this summer due to wildfires, and some states – most recently Michigan and Montana – announced burning bans in an effort to prevent uncontrolled blazes. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. asked localities across the state to ban the personal use of fireworks, but many local leaders ignored the request amid questions over whether they had authority to impose a ban.
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