Forest fires kill 15 as Greece asks EU for help

ATHENS, Aug 24 (Reuters) Forest fires sweeping across southern Greece killed at least 15 people today, including two French tourists, as Athens asked the European Union for urgent help.

Six people including two firefighters and two French people dead in a blaze near the town of Areopolis, on the southerly Peloponnese peninsula, official sources said.

Nine more people were found dead near Zakharo, on the west coast of the peninsula, at least six of them in cars, a fire brigade official said.

The fires have spread eastward from the western Peloponnese to the southern tip of the peninsula near Areopolis, some 300 km southwest of Athens by road.

Dozens of villages were evacuated and ambulances took several people to nearby hospitals with burns and breathing problems.

''The situation is extremely dire,'' the mayor of Zakharo, Pantazis Chronopoulos, told reporters. ''The speed with which this fire has been spreading is astonishing.'' The government announced a state of emergency in Lakonia and Messinia provinces and asked for help from the EU.

''This message has been sent and we await the responses,'' Acting Interior Minister Spyros Flogaitis told reporters.

Greece has this year seen some of its worst fires in a decade, caused by high temperatures, drought and arsonists.

A total of 170 fires broke out on Thursday and Friday alone as winds picked up after a three-day heatwave that saw temperatures rise to 41 Celsius (106 F).

The government's popularity has fallen as the public have blamed it for failures to stop the fires, which have reached the outskirts of Athens and destroyed much of the nearby Mount Parnitha nature reserve in the past two months.

Greeks go to the polls on September 16.

''Unfortunately we are experiencing another great environmental disaster in our country,'' said Yannis Ragousis, spokesman for the socialist opposition party PASOK.

Greece's weather service said the winds were expected to weaken late in the evening.

Other firefighters were attacking smaller fires near the towns of Elefsina to the west of the capital and Lagonissi to the east, with two airplanes and two helicopters.

REUTERS Mir BD2324