Chaidari: fire at the Camp caused by a transformer

A fire broke out around 07:50 on the morning of Wednesday, August 12, inside the Chaidari Camp. According to local reporting, it started immediately after an explosion in a power transformer. The same cause is being attributed to a morning power outage recorded in the Forest area. The source of the fire was located low within the Camp grounds, near the Municipality’s Sanitation Service. It was noticed immediately by municipal employees who were present there.

The fire was also detected by a drone monitoring the area, which triggered the alert. The municipality’s water tanker, already on site, was the first to respond. It was followed by the Fire Service with 15 firefighters and six vehicles. The Camp’s own fire safety team and municipal services also took part in extinguishing the blaze. Chaidari mayor Michalis Selekos went to the scene together with the Municipality’s Civil Protection team.

The local outlet that covered the incident explicitly denies that two helicopters carried out water drops, as had been reported by other sources. This clarification matters for gauging the scale of the operation. The fire was tackled using ground resources. The risk of it spreading was nonetheless real, since the area contains pine trees. Nearby are military housing and the wooded grove of the Historical Memory Park.

The incident brings back into focus the issue of fires starting from the electricity grid. In the major fire on Mount Poikilo, two parallel outbreaks had been recorded from sparks off ADMIE pylons, in Schisto and Neoktista. According to analyses from the Arson Crime Response Directorate and WWF, cited by the outlet, grid-related fires are responsible for between 55% and 75% of burned areas. This figure makes the grid a key risk factor. Undergrounding the network in Western Attica had been discussed back in 2021.

Of that discussion, only a section of ADMIE’s network at Diomideios Garden was ultimately implemented. The rest of the project did not go ahead. The issue resurfaces every time an incident linked to an electrical fault is recorded. In Attica, the Kouvaras fire was also attributed to cabling, as described in the report on the link to the DEDDIE grid. The Fire Service has ordered an investigation into that case.

Chaidari sits in one of the most complex zones of forest-urban mix in the Attica basin. Its administrative boundaries include parts of Mount Poikilo and Mount Aigaleo that border homes, hospitals and army camps. The municipality has already protested the cut in the fire-protection budget, since of the 130,000 euros, only 7,563 euros in works were approved. The mayor has requested by letter a revision of the funding decision. The request remains pending.

A previous incident at the same Camp had been recorded on August 1, 2022. On Thursday, August 13, a fire in low vegetation in Chaidari was brought under control within fifteen minutes. More from Chaidari on the Chaidari page. The area is at risk category 5. Residents are urged to remain highly alert.