Panic and destruction in Greece as wildfire and city meet

By Renee Maltezou and Stelios Misinas

ATHENS (Reuters) - Vangelis Ilias was returning from holiday on Monday when friends called to tell him the unthinkable. A wildfire in forests north of Athens had suddenly descended on his suburb and was approaching his sculpture workshop.

Minutes later, the 55-year-old's shop on a plot between warehouses, fields and a wood seller in Vrilissia, 10 km (6 miles) from the city centre, had been devoured by Greece's worst fire this year.

Like many in Vrilissia, Ilias was shocked. When he started his business there two years ago, he never thought wildfires would reach so close.

Standing at the workshop, whose sheet metal walls were buckled and blackened, the father-of-two described how the flames leapt from nearby plots to a neighbouring warehouse.

"It jumped over to mine and burned it down. From here, it went next door and then to the house next to it," he said, suspecting someone was to blame. "A minor carelessness, negligence, arson and the bad is done."

A plaster bust of a soldier lay cracked in the burned wreckage. Other blocks of stone appeared blown apart by the heat.

Stoked by gale-force winds and despite the efforts of hundreds of firefighters, aircraft and trucks, the blaze moved quickly into the suburbs on Monday, torching homes and stirring panic in neighbourhoods that had never seen wildfires up close.

Hundreds took to the streets, their faces covered by bandanas or t-shirts as smoke and ash descended.

Many rushed to evacuate.

'FALL AND RISE AGAIN'

The fire had been largely extinguished in the suburbs on Tuesday. But the unusual impact on more densely populated areas surrounding the capital was a stark reminder of the dangers of climate change, which has reduced rainfall and increased temperatures in Greece, leaving forests and scrubland bone-dry and ripe for fires come summer.

Residents across the neighbourhood were caught unawares. One woman died in a wreath-making business in Vrilissia on Monday.

One of her colleagues, 70-year-old Sakis Morfis, said they were all joking together earlier that day. In the early afternoon he drove to buy some dog food nearby and when he returned the whole area was swallowed by smoke.

He put his dogs in the car and left.

"Everything happened like lightning," said the man, whose home was also burned. "Worst of all, we lost a colleague … a person you see everyday, whom you greet good morning."

Authorities echoed the shock.

"It's insane, not only unusual, what has happened,” said Harris Mavroudis, deputy mayor responsible for civil protection. "This is a municipality where this has never happened."

Ilias the sculptor is stoic and ready to rebuild. He is not afraid to stay in the area - he says that the fire will not return for years now that everything has burned.

"Life has shown me many times that this is the way to go: I fall and then I rise again."

(Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)