CNN
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Greece’s worst forest fire of the year has spread at breakneck speed through the Attica region towards the capital Athens, leaving a devastating trail that has killed one woman, set fire to thousands of hectares of land and forced people to flee their homes.
The fire that broke out on Sunday near the town of Varnavas, about 35 kilometers northeast of Athens, has now subsided, although Authorities warned that the fire risk remained high as the country experienced scorching temperatures.
As the region recovers from the fire, satellite images reveal the immense extent of the damage the fire has caused and show how frighteningly close the flames came to destroying entire towns and villages.
Reuters reported, citing local fire authorities, that some locations were completely surrounded by flames reaching heights of up to 24 meters.
Images from Varnavas show the town surrounded by black, scorched earth. The hilly landscape that surrounds it was quickly engulfed by flames as the fire spread with astonishing speed due to a combination of high temperatures, strong winds and the land parched by a very hot, dry summer.
Vothonas, a village near Varnavas, is also surrounded by a black, ash-covered landscape that was almost completely destroyed by the forest fires.
The fire reached the outskirts of Athens, a city of three million inhabitants, and came within a few kilometers of the busy, tourist-filled center.
Pictures from Vrilissia, a suburb in the north of the city, show huge burn scars in parts of the city. Here, the body of a woman was found in a burnt-out building.
Forest fires occur every year in Greece, but they are becoming more severe and frequent due to human-induced climate change, which is causing heat and drought, which in turn prepares the ground for violent, destructive fires.
Greece experienced the hottest June and July months on record this summer. Brutal, intense heatwaves have dried out the country and created ideal conditions for fires.
