According to a European Union satellite mapping agency, a devastating forest fire burned 104 square kilometers of land northeast of Athens this week. Numerous houses were destroyed, prompting several countries to send aid.

The civil protection service Copernicus announced the damage estimate on Wednesday, a day after the forest fire was contained in a large-scale firefighting operation that ended on the outskirts of Berlin.

A factory worker was killed in the fire, which swept through the mountainous regions towards the south, covering an area almost twice the size of Manhattan and enveloping the Greek capital in a thick cloud of smoke.

The fire damaged 22 shops and left at least 78 houses uninhabitable, almost half of them completely destroyed, Greek authorities said on Wednesday. Inspections in the fire-affected areas will continue in the coming days.

Nine countries, including neighboring Turkey, sent support to Greece to reinforce ground crews and water-dropping planes and helicopters operating outside Athens.

The forest fire follows several heatwaves across southern Europe and low rainfall this year.

According to a recent estimate by the National Observatory of Athens, 450 square kilometers of forest have burned in the Attica region, which includes Athens, over the past eight years. This corresponds to 37 percent of the region’s total forest area.

Photo: A damaged house in Penteli, a suburb of Athens, is seen after a deadly wildfire near the Greek capital, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

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Disaster Natural disasters Forest fires