Probe into fires gathers pace as death toll rises

As the death toll from last month's disastrous wildfires on the outskirts of Attica rose to 96, a judicial investigation into who or what was responsible for the extent of the tragedy - one of the worst in Greece's modern history - has been quickly gathering pace. 

Athens court of first instance prosecutor Ilias Zagoraios and his deputy in the probe, Varvara Gnesouli, have been busy taking depositions from relatives of fire victims, many of whom are also taking legal action against the authorities for failing to act quickly enough to prevent the disaster. 

Some of the relatives have assigned experts to conduct independent investigations into the actions of rescue services and local authority officials. 

Evidence pointing to a series of mistakes and oversights by the fire service, police and regional authorities has already emerged through the parallel...