PSATHA, Greece, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Despondent residents returned to gutted homes and fire-scarred landscapes northwest of Athens on Tuesday as wildfires eased across Greece, though hundreds of firefighters were on alert for persistent flare-ups in rugged hills and canyons across the country.
Local crews supported by water-bombing aircraft and reinforcements from Romania and France were operating on three fronts west of Athens around the Gulf of Corinth, dousing flames raging since Friday.
Strong dry winds blowing from the Aegean Sea, known as the meltemi, had complicated their efforts, with water bombers unable to operate at times, officials said.
"We are talking about a fire where we didn't have an aircraft at our disposal for 30 continuous hours, which caused us a lot of difficulties," deputy fire brigade spokesperson Ioannis Artopoios told public broadcaster ERT.
In the coastal community of Porto Germeno, some 60 km (40 miles) northwest of Athens, Vivi Gialia, 45, surveyed the remains of her parents' home and the fire-ravaged landscape of her childhood summers.
"It's as if my heart has been torn out," she told Reuters.
Europe has been ravaged by wildfires this summer after a period of record-breaking heatwaves and little rain — conditions that many scientists say have been exacerbated by human-driven climate change.
France and Spain have been particularly hard hit, although huge blazes there died down over the weekend, providing some respite. Greece, a known fire hotspot, had until now experienced a relatively mild summer.
Two crew members of a firefighting helicopter died on Sunday near the seaside community of Psatha, about 40 km (25 miles) from Athens, after a mid-air brush with a second helicopter, whose two crew survived. The circumstances of the crash, which involved U.S.-registered Bell helicopters, were under investigation by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Greek authorities said.
'OUR SOUL IS BURNING'
The fire, possibly caused by sparks from vibrating electricity conductors,occurred in an area popular as a retreat for Athenians. More than 200 companion and farm animals rescued by volunteers were housed at a shelter in the town of Megara west of Athens.
Psatha resident Aimilios Ioannidis, 68, whose home now overlooks ashen stumps of what were once pine trees, was bitter. "For 10 years I will be looking at this landscape, this dead landscape."
At Porto Germeno, small religious shrines, ubiquitous in many Greek homes, still stood on the sides of roads or at the entrance to a gutted house. In one home, a woman was attempting to sweep away broken tiles in a darkened room, her steel front door black from the flames. The Greek government has said it would compensate individuals whose homes were destroyed or damaged.
"It was a beautiful place, we spent our summers here. We have spent happy times here, and there is nothing anymore," Gialia said, criticising what she said was a slow response by firefighters.
It was a sentiment echoed by Ioannidis."Our soul is burning ... our house may not have been burned, it may have been saved, but our soul is burning when we look at that," he said, of the barren fire-scarred landscape. "There were five small fronts and they left it to become an entire blaze," he said.
"They did not do anything ... they left us to the mercy of God."
(Additional reporting by Deborah Kyvrikosaios, Lefteris Papadimas, Angeliki Koutantou and Renee Maltezou; writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Aurora Ellis)
