Homes evacuated as fire strikes near Athens

Homes and clinics were evacuated after a forest fire broke out Thursday on Mount Pentelikon outside Athens injuring a fireman and destroying a rescue vehicle,Greek fire officials said.The fire "is not threatening inhabited zones for the time being, but it continues to spread, though fortunately the wind has calmed,"an emergency fire coordinator said.Strong winds blowing across the region had fanned the fire earlier, causing firemen to evacuate residents living nearby, including 130 patients in a clinic in the suburb of Melissia, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from central Athens.Another 21 people were moved from a nearby health centre on the orders of the health ministry.Authorities said around a dozen isolated homes had been at least partly damaged.The fire also caused numerous electrical outages.A thick cloud of smoke covered a large area north of Athens as some 300 firemen battled the flames,assisted by nine aircraft and as many helicopters."The situation is very delicate, the wind is gusting unceasingly, the flames brush the houses,retreat then come back," Iannis Ioannidis,the mayor of Vrilissia, neighbouring Melissia,said earlier in the day.Police spokesman Evangelos Falaras said the fire covered a front of some two to three kilometres.
Answering criticism that firemen had reacted slowly, he said that the water-bombing planes had been hampered by smoke and winds of more than 80 kilometres an hour.The fire ravaged a pine grove recently reforested after two big fires in 1995 and 1998 destroyed thousands of hectares (acres) of trees.Thursday's blaze was the latest in a series that have hit Greece in the past month, including areas close to the capital.The blazes followed weeks of drought and heatwave.
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As in the days of Noah...