ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Firefighters in Greece battled scattered fires as Tuesday broke, hoping to contain the remains of the major wildfire that burned into the northern suburbs of Athens, triggering evacuations and leaving at least one person dead. With strong winds that had fanned the flames on Sunday and Monday dying down overnight, the fire department said the fire no longer had any active, advancing fronts and firefighters were concentrating their efforts on extinguishing the flames in hundreds of slow-burning areas. Authorities were racing to extinguish as much of the blaze as possible ahead of Tuesday afternoon, when winds were predicted to pick up again, with a forecast of gusts reaching up to 60-70 kilometers (37-43 miles) per hour.
Reinforcements in the form of water-dropping aircraft, firefighters and vehicles were arriving from France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Serbia and Romania. The blaze began Sunday afternoon near Lake Marathon, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) northeast of Athens, coursed across Mount Pendeli and descended onto the northern and northeastern suburbs of Athens. Firefighters found the burned body of a woman in an industrial building in the suburb of Vrilissia just after midnight.
The woman was believed to have been an employee who became trapped inside the building in an area that had been under evacuation orders. More than a dozen people were treated by paramedics, mostly for smoke inhalation, while five firefighters suffered light burn.