Residents of Athens were told to stay inside their homes and seal windows and doors from toxic clouds of wildfire smoke as temperatures in Greece rose just shy of the highest ever recorded in Europe.

The mercury hit 47.1C – below the 48C record set in 1977 – as more than 500 firefighters battled a blaze on the lower slopes of Mount Parnitha, on the city outskirts, assisted by nine helicopters, five aircraft, police and the army.

Authorities in Athens said hazardous particles had concentrated in the air in the centre of the capital, advising the city’s residents to keep their windows closed.

More than 90 homes, 27 businesses and 80 cars were destroyed on Tuesday, authorities said.

The fires caused damage to the electricity grid, which has already been affected by the heatwave.

Local blackouts are expected in the Attiki neighbourhood of Athens.

“We are not talking about climate change anymore, but climate threat,” said Nikos Chardalias, the deputy minister for civil protection.

More than 8,000 wildfires have so far been reported in Greece this year. It marks an increase of 160pc in the number of fires and 300pc in land burnt when compared with the average from 2008 to 2020.

“We are talking about dozens of wildfires in Greece, all of them coming from the same cause: the fact that we have extreme temperatures,” Professor Efthymios Lekkas told Greece’s ERT1 TV. “We have zero humidity, in the ground, in plants, in the air”.

A wildfire in Varimpompi, a suburb on the outskirts of Athens, which broke out on Tuesday, spread to an area of 30 square kilometres.

Mr Chardalias announced yesterday that the fire had damaged 94 houses, 27 businesses and 146 vehicles.

“Our absolute priority is human life” he said. “Human life is above anything else.”

A pumping station near the fires was also damaged, leading to temporary loss of water supply even in parts of the metropolitan area of Athens.

Two more wildfires are raging. On the island of Evia 150 houses have been destroyed by a huge blaze that surrounded Saint David Monastery and 10 villages.

However, three monks from the monastery had refused to leave, firefighters said, adding that everyone else had been evacuated from the villages.

“The flames are 30 metres to 40 metres high and surrounding the monastery. We’re suffocating due to the smoke,” one of the monks told the ANA Greek news agency by phone.

Residents of the southern area of Messinia have also been evacuated with more than hundreds of acres of forest destroyed.

“This disaster has no precedent” Fanis Spanos, regional governor of Sterea Ellada, told the Athens News Agency.

“Thank God we haven’t had any loss of human life so far,” said Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister.

Turkey has also been hit by major wildfires. The authorities have struggled to put out 160 fires across 32 provinces in the last six days.

Tourists have been forced to flee by boat and huge swathes of agriculture have been destroyed.

“Very little is coming from the leader of the country,” said 52-year-old British holidaymaker Robert Churm in Bodrum, echoing the sentiments of many outraged Turkish citizens at the government’s response to the threat. (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2021)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]