Fire North of Athens (old)

Some say the best way to get rid of old things is to give them a final ride to the bin if you don't remember you had them till you found them again after a long time. I wouldn't say the same for a series of pictures I found while browsing old files of mine though. I mean yes, the picture quality is terrible (taken from my phone in 2007 - you've been warned) but they captured one of the worst rapid fires around Athens which burned the South side of Penteli mountain literally in a few minutes.

Back in the day I was working for the biggest provider of telecommunications in Greece and my office had an uninterrupted 180 view from the 7th floor of a 13 floor building, the tallest one by far around (actually, now that I think about it this was also my last office job that I quit a few years later but that's another story that I might share another time if you are interested). Penteli, like most mountains around Athens (if not Greece) is full of pine trees which in summer they have little difference to unleaded fuel. This, combined with the strong North wind, made things hard to handle.

I'd better let the (terrible for today's standards) pictures do the talking and put the time stamps so you get an idea of the fire's speed: