Greek fires over the past seven years have destroyed more than a third of the forest area in the Attica region, which includes the capital Athens and the port city near Piraeus, according to new data.
Thirteen mega fires from 2017 to Aug. 13 burned an area as large as about 700,000 stremas (roughly 173,000 hectares) of the region's total area of 2.5 million stremas (617,763 hectares), or 37%, a statement from the National Observatory said on Tuesday based on data from the EU's Copernicus service.
More specifically, of the 1.25 million stremma (308,882 hectares) in forest areas in the region, 450,000 stremma (111,197 hectares) were destroyed by fires in the last eight years, according to the Observatory.
The fire that broke out northeast of Athens on Sunday has so far destroyed an area of 96,000 strema (23,700 hectares) as of midday Tuesday, he added.
Since last March, Greece has signed relevant contracts for the purchase of new firefighting aircraft of the Canadair 515 type, since the old line is no longer produced.
While the criticism continues because the Greek government has used only 1% of the relevant budget from the Recovery Fund for the prevention of fires, the European information system for forest fires has presented with a corresponding video the timeline of the disaster from the beginning of the big fire on August 11 to August 13.
Also, the opposition parties continue to criticize the way the fires in northeastern Attica were dealt with and the lack of precautions against fires at a time of marked climate change with continuous drought and high temperatures.
