Nadia
In the uphill street, Stratonikis Street, which is perpendicular to Anapauses, in Patima Chalandriou, a team from the Attica Region is conducting an autopsy in the business where 65-year-old Nadia from Moldova died tragically.
Inside, only crumpled sheet metal can be seen, and from the outside, a motorcycle has almost been destroyed by the fury of the fire. Scattered dried flowers and vase bases show that just 24 hours ago people worked here, like the unfortunate woman who made wreaths and flower arrangements for ceremonies. On a smudged metal plinth at the entrance, friends have left a white rose in her memory.
All around burnt houses, cars and businesses with the cemetery in the background compose a dystopian scene that no one imagined we would see when the first flames broke out in Barnabas last Sunday.
Cost
A little further up, on Kalavryton Street, which is the natural border between Patima Vrilissio and Patima Chalandriou, the fire has stopped on the side of Chalandriou, at least up to the height of Tzavela Street.
There we meet Mrs. Ioanna Goulandris, who opens her house to us and leads us to the balcony, to show us that the pine trees touch her house. One of them, in fact, has been broken by old bad weather, but its dry branches lean against the front balcony. “When the fire approached, we received a message from “112” to evacuate the area. My husband and I left and stayed for two days at a relative’s house in Chalandri, as, when the fire passed, we had no electricity or water,” says Mrs. Goulandris and continues: “The direction of the wind took the fire towards Patima Chalandri, otherwise we would burn here too. There are these huge pine trees on the houses, which we cannot disturb. This drought has been here for a long time. We have informed the municipality, but no one cares. At the back was another very dangerous pine tree. We collected money from all the apartments to get a special permit from the Town Planning which cost 100 euros and another 500 was taken by the workshop that cut it.”
“I saved my house with a rubber band, without help…”
We climb towards Penteli, where the images of destruction are spread over a vast area. When the fire crossed Mount Penteli and reached the residential area, the stream of Nea Penteli acted as a river of fire that carried the flames to the neighborhoods like lightning. On the main avenue of Eleftheriou Venizelou at the intersection with Raidestou, the closed Pentelis gymnasium, once a jewel of the area, went up in flames and burned from one end to the other. Through the damaged door we pass into the vestibule, where the ceiling materials are hanging in disarray. Inside the stadium the picture is like a scene from a horror movie with the ruins half-melted in large piles under the sun, as there is no longer a roof.
Molten irons
On the same road, the bus stop reflects the fury of the fire that melted the iron. A little further, in the vertical streets of Alekou Panagouli street, the chilling sound of the fire has been replaced by the sound of the chainsaw cutting the burnt logs. DEDDIE workshops are everywhere trying to restore the widespread damage to the electricity supply network.
Here we meet Mr. Tasso, one of the many residents of the devastated areas who ignored evacuation notices and stayed behind to save their properties. While everything around is burnt, his house stands intact, with the Greek flag flying on the balcony. His testimony is typical of fiery destruction. “I was born here, as well as my mother and grandmother. I couldn’t let the house burn,” he tells us and continues his narration of the nightmarish hours the area experienced. “I chased the women away and was left alone. With a rubber band I saved my house, without any help. No one came here, neither to help us extinguish nor to tell us to leave the house. In the morning (s.s.: Monday), when the fire was still high, the helicopters came and stopped it. But then the helicopters left for Dionysus and at 12 noon it flared up and burned us. They let us burn,” says Mr. Tasos.
His business, which operates earthmoving companies, is also a short distance away. “I suffered damage, but at least I saved the machines,” he tells us. Around him are the carcasses of houses and cars that their owners failed to save.
DIMITRIS: “They burned all here”
On Perikleous Street, Mr. Dimitris stands over the ruins of his house. A large part that was used as a warehouse has burned down and inside you can see skeletons of furniture and household appliances in a building where only the walls and pillars remain. “We couldn’t do anything, everything here burned down, but the other part of the house was saved,” he tells us, while he also believes that Nea Penteli burned down because the aerial firefighting vehicles left. “If they hadn’t sent the helicopters to Dionysus, we wouldn’t have been burned,” he points out.
WHERE THE FIRE STARTED
“In Varnavas, 40 houses have burned”
At the entrance of Barnabas the signs show the directions in a pitch-black landscape that stretches as far as the human eye can see. In the center, the village which is 35 kilometers from Athens, seems untouched by the flames.
“40 houses have burned here. Follow me and I’ll show you,” a resident tells us. We pass through narrow streets, which are full of fallen cables, while electric lighting poles hang half-burnt to the right and left. We arrive at a house that has burned down.
“The owners were away on holiday and came back yesterday. Now I don’t know where they live. As you go around the village you will see the destruction”, the resident tells us. Indeed, surrounding houses and cars have become a fire escape and it is evident that a great battle was fought to prevent the fire from passing deeper into the residential area. From any point of the village one looks, however, the landscape is heartbreaking. The fire that started from this area spread over an area of about 23 kilometers to Halandri and was the second largest fire of the last decades in Attica after that of 2009.
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