Parnitha

The re-emergence and stabilization of the wolf population on Mount Parnitha, on the northwestern outskirts of Athens, in recent years is an important development, which on the one hand demonstrates the force of nature but, on the other, creates new challenges in the management of a mountainous national park situated next to a populous capital city.

A large-scale operation to clean all the paved sections of the Kifissos River is being launched by the Attica Region, removing tons of debris and waste, so that with the full release of the cross-section there will be an unimpeded flow of stormwater.

Valentini Papaioannou did not know what to expect as she returned to her home in Palaia Penteli, northeast of Athens, on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 13. Everything had happened so fast when she'd left it 30 hours earlier with her husband and their 2-year-old son, running away from a wildfire that had spread onto their street.

Volunteers from the Anima and Save Your Hood organizations discovered a charred human skeleton Thursday while rescuing injured animals in the burned areas around Lake Marathon, northeast of Athens.

"We immediately called the police and the homicide squad arrived quickly," Vasilis Sfakianopoulos, head of Save Your Hood said. The discovery was made around 7 p.m.

The taste that always lingers after a disaster is bitter and sour. It's hard to admit that once again, something went wrong and that mistakes and omissions were made. This pattern has repeated itself time and again - in Ilia, Mount Parnitha, Mati, Evia and the Dadia Forest with the wildfires, and in Thessaly with the floods. 

Authorities are currently investigating the circumstances under which the large fire in northeastern Attica began.

According to well-informed sources, the most likely scenario being considered is that the fire was caused by a short circuit in power lines in the Varnavas area.

A fire that broke out on the slopes of the Greek capital's Mount Parnitha on Saturday, June 29, destroyed a part of the forest, stretching from Katsimidi peak to the former royal estate at Tatoi, which had been completely razed by a conflagration three years ago.

"The difficult times are still ahead of us." wrote Mitsotakis, adding that "our effort is continuous. In this effort, our allies are new tools that build a new culture of prevention and responsibility."

He also highlighted the difficulty of dealing with the mountain Parnitha fire in Attica that broke out on Saturday afternoon. 

A wildfire in a mountainous forest area just outside the Greek capital eased on Saturday but some 200 firefighters assisted by water-carrying planes were still battling to extinguish the flames, officials said.

Dozens of firefighters were battling on Saturday to stop a wildfire from spreading to a nature reserve in a mountainous forest area on the outskirts of the Greek capital, the fire service said.