Arson suspected, but coastal town was a ‘fire trap’
Greek authorities said yesterday there were serious indications that a deadly wildfire that gutted a vacation resort near Athens was started deliberately, while experts warned that the devastated coastal town had been built like a ‘‘fire trap,’’ with poor safety standards and few escape routes.
The death toll from Monday’s blaze east of the Greek capital rose to 82 as rescuers and divers continued to search for more bodies in burnt-out homes and at sea, where hundreds fled to try to escape the inferno.
Public Order Minister Nikos Toskas said satellite image analysis of the deadly fire and a second blaze that broke out on the other side of the city indicated both had been set in multiple places within a short timeframe.
‘‘We have serious indications and significant findings of criminal activity concerning arson,’’ Toskas said. ‘‘We are troubled by many factors, and there have been physical findings that are the subject of an investigation.’’
He declined to provide more details. US military officials said on Thursday that they had been helping Greece gather images of the fire-ravaged areas with combat drones and navy surveillance aircraft.
Fires near populated areas in Greece are often blamed on arsonists believed to be targeting forest land for development, but arrests are rare.
Most casualties were found at Mati, some 30 kilometres east of Athens, a small seaside resort filled with summer homes and apartments owned by retirees. A group of experts from the University of Athens’ Faculty of Geology and Geo-environment said the layout of the resort had acted like a ‘‘fire trap’’ with access to the sea hampered by cliffs, and homes built in wooded areas with little provision for fire safety. The study also noted that the resort had narrow roads, numerous dead-ends, and was poorly sign-posted, meaning visitors could not easily reach a nearby main road.
Authorities were still struggling with the identification of charred bodies. Germany’s federal criminal police said a team of its forensics specialists was in Greece to help authorities identify the dead. The team members have worked on major disasters, including the 2004 Asian tsunami and a 2002 mid-air collision of a Russian charter flight and a DHL cargo plane over southern Germany that killed 71 people. – AP