Forest fire sweeps northern Athens, burns homes

ATHENS, Aug 16 (Reuters) A large forest fire fanned bystrong winds swept across the northern Athens suburb of Nea Penteli today, torching homes and cars and causing power cuts in parts of the Greek capital, officials said.

The fire started at around 1300 hrs IST and was racing down the Penteli hill, 20 km north of Athens, sending a thick dark cloud across the city, blocking out the sun with the smell of charred wood hanging in the air.

''This is a forest fire burning pine trees and low vegetation but it has now reached residential areas, I can confirm this,'' fire brigade spokesman Evangelos Falaras told reporters.

''We are mainly battling it on the ground because airplanes and helicopters cannot drop water to the core of the fire because of winds and the thick smoke.'' He said 20 vehicles, 60 firefighters, seven helicopters and six planes, as well as hundreds of volunteers and residents, were involved in battling the blaze in the affluent area.

Falaras could not say how many houses had been damaged.

Local residents, who complained about what they said was a slow response from firefighters, told Greek television several homes had burnt down with no sign the fire was stopping.

''If this continues at the same speed we will see the fire in the central squares of Penteli,'' the suburb's mayor Dimitris Stergiou told reporters.

The fire triggered a series of power cuts in different parts of the capital.

Greece has seen some of the worst fires of the last decade this summer, triggered by record-high temperatures, drought and arsonists.

The Penteli area, once a lush pine forest, was twice torched by arsonists in the mid-1990s.

REUTERS SV VV1650