Drama Near Athens: Volunteers Save Hundreds of Animals
Wildfires in western Attica cause evacuations and the deaths of two pilots, while volunteers make superhuman efforts to rescue domestic and wild animals.
Wildfires in western Attica cause evacuations and the deaths of two pilots, while volunteers make superhuman efforts to rescue domestic and wild animals.
As Greece battles devastating wildfires that have swept through the central part of the country in recent days, harrowing footage has emerged showing the struggle for survival not only of people but also of animals. Footage from SKAI TV shows three frightened horses galloping at full speed away from the firestorm in the area of Kandili near Megara, in western Attica.
According to information reported by the same broadcaster, all three horses were fortunately rescued. This is just a snippet of the dramatic animal rescue story unfolding amid one of Greece's most severe wildfire crises this year.
The town of Megara, located about 40 kilometers west of Athens, has become the center of a major volunteer rescue operation. Organizer Elena Dede told G1 Globo (BR) that volunteers have managed to save more than 280 animals, most of them dogs. The animals have been temporarily housed in an indoor sports hall.
"It was very hot, and the fire was very aggressive. It kept changing direction," Dede described the chaotic conditions on the ground. She added that the entire situation was extremely difficult for everyone involved: "It was very hard for all the volunteers and all the people involved to survive the smoke and stress."
Richard Parr, director of the Center for Wild Animal Welfare, praised the efforts of firefighters and local organizations as heroic but warned of a systemic problem. "Today, very often, this work is improvised and falls on the shoulders of individuals and small organizations," Parr told G1 Globo (BR).
He emphasized the huge disparity between the scale of the disaster and the resources available. "The scale of the challenge, both in terms of the number of affected animals and the area affected by fire, is enormous and completely disproportionate," he said. "There is a huge mismatch between the size of the problem and the resources available to deal with it."
The firefighting effort has also claimed human lives. Two people, crew members of firefighting helicopters, died in a collision between two aircraft during an operation near Athens. At the most critical moment, the fire was spreading on five fronts, destroying dozens of homes and engulfing more than 100 square kilometers of vegetation.
The most severe situation is in western Attica, where the fire spread from the Boeotia region toward Megara, Psatha, and Porto Germeno. The firestorm did not spare the islands of Kefalonia and Crete either, where evacuations of residents and tourists were also carried out.
In response to increasingly frequent and destructive wildfires, Greek authorities have announced the introduction of a new satellite system for early fire detection. The system will use thermal satellites to enable faster detection of hotspots and more efficient deployment of firefighting forces, which could save many lives in the future, both human and animal.
