Angry Greeks criticise government response after wildfire devastation

ATHENS - As flames threatened to engulf the home of Stelios Kokkinelis in a suburb north of Athens at the weekend and the emergency services failed to respond to his calls for help, he decided to ignore an evacuation order and take matters into his own hands.

"I hid so they wouldn't find me. I moved to the other side of my house and started to fight the fire with my own water, otherwise it would have gone," said the 82-year-old, who built his three-storey house in the wooded area of Varympompi when he returned home after 25 years in South Africa. His daughter Eirini was in tears as she told of how she fled without knowing what had happened to her father or whether the home she and her family shared with him would be destroyed.