60 fires broke out for one day in Greece, due to the high temperatures and the strong winds and also due to hidden interests, who use the atmospheric conditions, in order to burn down a flank of a mountain and free some area for construction. Firefighters did not have enough means to fight the firestorm, because the government had decided to save some money and it didn’t hire enough firefighter choppers.

“Until yesterday it was raining in Northern Greece and on Wednesday it will rain again. We are not in the active fire season,” said deputy minister of internal affairs and responsible for the police forces Christos Makryanakos. His statement provoked a sharp reaction from the firefighter syndicate, whose members remind that officially, Greece enters the fire season from May 1^st and the government is desperately trying to change this date to June 1^st. Unions are warning that money are being saved not only from helicopters but also from ground equipment.

Regardless of the organizational disorder, today citizens and firefighters put up a great fight against the 60 fires around the country. Very close to private homes a big fire broke out in the luxurious sea suburb Glyfada at about 03:30PM. Together with firefighter the residents of the neighborhood successfully put out the fire after a five hour fight. This was done also with the help of 10 airplanes and two helicopters, 35 firefighter squads, tens of firefighters, over 60 soldiers from the land forces, 11 municipality tanks and about 100 volunteers. The firestorm spread very quickly, because of the strong wind and reached the neighboring suburb Voula, where it was taken control of.

Later on, another fire broke out near the Athenian neighborhood – Vrana, which is the historic village of Marathonas. The flames reached 300 meters before the historic museum but thanks to 4 helicopters and the land forces this firestorm was also put out.