{"Title":"We survived the forest fires in Mati","Description":{"Value":"

These seemed like they were going to be the best holidays of our life. My husband had gone on leave a couple of days earlier – his break officially started on the 23rd, – and we had gone a bit earlier to prepare the country house in Mati. We were with our baby, just born, three months old, so everything seemed ideal.

The house is like a family apartment house, that is to say, four apartments. We were on the ground floor. On the floor above us were our dear uncle, along with my mother, and my husband's grandmother and the lady that cared for her.

The day started out nice. In the morning we had heard about the fire in Kinetta, and we had heard the fire trucks passing in front of the house, because in Mati we live very close to Marathonos avenue, the main thoroughfare of Marathon, so we were keeping an eye out.

Around noon, as I remember, the smell started to get a bit stronger. In the early afternoon, because of the baby being so young, we started to shut the doors and windows. But we thought that because of the weather, which was not yet too bad -- no strong wind and the rest of it… We were on standby.

So, Elias, my husband, went to take a look with the binoculars, and behind the mountain, behind Vountzas, he could just barely see some smoke. So, he came down and told me: “Fay, I am not exactly worried, but anyway, gather up our things to leave, we’ll go for a ride and we’ll see.”

By the time I packed the baby’s bag and got the baby dressed, within less than ten minutes, maybe five, maybe seven, I can't remember, I don’t remember what the exact time was, there was a very loud knock at the door. It was Elias’ uncle from upstairs: “Leave” he says, “as fast as you can! The plot next door is on fire!” We were in shock and it took us a few moments to comprehend what he was saying.

So within seconds we got our keys for the car, our bags, and above all the baby, and I came out of the house. I looked to the front: all good. I turned my eyes to the right. I could not even see the sky. The flames were... I mean the fire had come directly to us.

I quickly got into the car; I was calling Elias to come. We were in two cars, each one took a car. He knocked at his aunt’s next door, we took her, Elias took his aunt with him and we left in two cars.

I was the first to leave and tried to drive down the street. Of course, I just threw the baby into its seat; I didn’t have time to buckle it in or anything. And as I tried to go downhill the fire suddenly appeared in front of me. So, I made a U-turn on the spot, and went up again. Elias was a bit behind, my husband, and he continued on too.

We shouted out to our uncle then, to see what was going on with grandma. I should add that grandma had been suffering from multiple sclerosis for forty years and was in a wheelchair and helpless. So, Uncle said, “let me put grandma in the car and then come to find you.”

We left, heading in the wrong directon on a cross-street of Avenue Marathonos . I remember cars coming in from the side roads – from Marathonos Avenue they came out down on the beach. I had started to lose my composure by that time. I could see that we weren’t moving, and I saw that there were many cars. I started to shout, I started to honk the horn, and I was shouting: “Help! My child! My child!” I remember some drivers in the cars who were staring at me and shrugging their shoulders, as if to say “what can we do?” and when I remember that, I get even angrier. They were right, but OK.

At some point I remember seeing this man who was hosing down his house and the surrounding area and I told him: “Please, throw some water on the car so my child doesn’t burn up!” This was totally illogical, but at the moment it was the most logical thing I could think of.

Elias kept telling me to leave the car so he could drive, and I told him: “I can't, no way!” I remember that every few seconds I felt like passing out, but with my adrenaline suddenly in the red, I came to again. I remember him crying and telling me: “Don’t be afraid, everything is fine!” and I looked back, to my right in the mirrors, from behind, right, left, everywhere, it was everything, fire everywhere, and I said: “OK...” I remember the baby, I was looking at him in the rearview mirror, his eyes were open, and he was saying nothing, not a peep. And this was a baby that had to drink milk every half hour. Elias’ aunt was very composed.

I don’t know what happened, how we got out, I can’t remember. I remember honking like crazy, I remember crying and saying: “My child will burn!” And at some point, after we reached the Rafina crossing, but from the lower side, from the coastal road, there was a man – May he be well! – who was in his underwear and was simply closing, he was closing the road, so that people wouldn’t enter Mati, and in doing so he let us get out more quickly.

All this time Elias was trying to contact his aunt and uncle. His aunt told us that his uncle had helped put grandma and her into the car, and had told them to go, because he wanted to go find the lady who took care of his mother, who had disappeared.

At some point in Loutsa, after many kilometers, we stopped to drink some water. Elias kept calling, but in vain. I could hear the aunt on the phone, who with all the smoke could not see where she was, and because everyone had left their cars in the middle of the road, she had no visibility. I remember hearing cars were exploding from the heat, I mean like a science fiction movie, like they were in a war zone. And our anxiety was peaking then, anxiety about what had happened to our uncle.

We called all the hospitals, to see if uncle was there. Some people of the region contacted us to tell us that there was a fire in the upper apartment of our building, which the firemen didn't go to put out, because other people had priority of course, other houses.

Our uncle died. Which we found out on Saturday. I think all the hospitals had learned our voices from the repeated calls we made – five times a day we were calling all the hospitals. In the end they had to do a DNA test. They had found him charred.

Life goes on for the living. Many people died, and Elias lost other relatives. He lost his cousin, and they lost their baby...

Mati was a place where there was a lot of family and a lot of love and a lot... we hope that someday it will be like that again.

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We survived the forest fires in Mati

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