Wildfire burns through northern suburb of Athens as residents told to evacuate

People in Kryoneri, north-east of the Greek capital, receive SMS messages telling them to get to safe areas

A wildfire burned through a northern suburb of the Greek capital of Athens on Saturday and some residents were ordered to evacuate, the country’s fire service reported.

Residents of the town of Kryoneri, 12.5 miles (20km) north-east of Athens, received three SMS messages to evacuate to safe areas, fire service spokesperson Vassilis Vathrakoyannis told reporters.

Greek media have shown houses on fire. Vathrakoyannis said: “There have been reports of damages. We will take stock when the fires have been put out.”

“The real difficulties are ahead of us,” he said, adding that Greece has asked for six firefighting planes from the European Union’s civil protection mechanism.