ATHENS – After visiting the Penteli neighborhood of the Greek capital where wildfires reached after spreading 25 miles, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis outlined a plan to provide subsidies for affected homes and businesses.

Authorities will offer up to 150,000 euros ($166,760) to households, 80 percent in government aid and 20 percent in interest-free loans, and up to 500,000 euros ($555,866) to destroyed businesses, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

That’s despite 80 percent of 146 homes ordered demolished because of fire damage not having their lots cleared of combustible materials as required, the government paying for rebuilding them and no penalties for violating the law to lessen fires.

After 2023 deadly fires and floods the government mulled making home insurance a requirement but while there was reportedly an uptick in homeowners buying coverage some 30-40 percent were uncovered then.

That means the government is paying for homeowners who don’t have insurance but Mitsotakis said, “I believe we can do this because we have handled other cases of natural catastrophes with a lot more beneficiaries.”

He said the government is drafting a plan to also prepare for flooding that can follow fires that devastate land areas, and said that so far this year there have been nearly 4,000 fires, many in the most populated Attica prefecture including Athens.

He said the wildfire that broke out in the village of Varnavas northeast of the capital and reached the city’s northern neighborhoods “was unfortunately, the only fire that spread beyond control, despite the fact that here as well the right decisions were made, as proven in several other fires – the dogma of a very fast first attack.”

He said said that at the end of the fire season this summer, an overall review will take place in Parliament and said that technology had helped deal with the fires after the government bolstered the firefighting services and adding more equipment such as drones and water-dropping aircraft.

“Technology has helped us a lot. There is no relation any more in terms of the speed we see fires compared to what happened in the past … and this, yes, needs a combination of drones, cameras, but we are already building a technological infrastructure that will allow us to locate fires very quickly and to naturally adopt the dogma of first attack much more aggressively than we have done.”

The Varnavas fire burned 10,000 hectares (24,711 acres) and burned scores of homes and 31 businesses and killed a factory worker in the northern Athens neighborhood of Vrilissia who tried to escape the flames in a bathroom.

It was not clear how much the state budgeted for aid  but a government official told Reuters that the amount would exceed 30 million euros ($33.36 million) including 5.2 million euros ($5.78 million) to municipalities.

The government detailed a 10-point plan to restore affected areas in Attica:

– Cleaning of public spaces (parks, glades, streets, walkways) affected by the fire has already begun in the context of the Anti-nero program, under the emergency funding of the Interior Ministry to fire-afflicted municipalities.

– Citizens and business owners will be able to apply for emergency aid for damage at homes and professional spaces through a special platform

– The Environment & Energy Ministry will announce, by the end of August and in collaboration with municipalities, the details of a special program for the immediate cleaning and restoring of private gardens that have been burned. This will happen under fast-track procedures and in collaboration with forestry services.

– The government has assigned to the Organization of Natural Environment and Climate Change (OFYPEKA, supervised by the Environment & Energy Ministry) the drafting and presentation by the end of September of a special plan for fire-prevention and restoration of forests and streams in Attica.

– At the same time, reforestations of 5,834 hectares (14,416 acres) in Attica are being contracted out by the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund with Recovery and Resilience Funding through the Anti-nero program.

– Comprehensive management studies on all the forests and mountains of Attica are being implemented and will be presented in the coming weeks. The purpose is to designate forestry cooperatives as forest managers by the next fire-prevention season, in the framework of forest management reforms.

– Fire-prevention studies are being drafted for all of Greece.

– Local City Plans will be drafted in the context of the ‘K. Doxiadis’ reform and incorporate special provisions for the protection of residential zones lying adjacent to forests from the threats of climate crisis and fires.

– A total of more than 2.1 billion euros will be allocated to the upgrade of civil protection systems and infrastructure, and nearly 1 billion euros from national and EU funding to the protection and management of Greek forests.

– Ahead of the next fire-prevention period, the policy for cleaning plots of land will be upgraded and boosted by additional supervisory tools, with inspection and penalty possibilities.