Sasa, a floppy eared mixed breed puppy with an alert little face, was waiting on a wire cage floor for someone to come home for her.
When containment lines were finally lifted this week, no one came.
She’s one of hundreds of pets and wild animals rescued this week after wildfires tore across mountains and coastal areas near Athens, Greece.
At its peak, the blaze burned on five separate fronts, destroying dozens of homes and scorching more than 100 square kilometers of land, forcing multiple evacuations across the region.
In the town of Megara, roughly 40 kilometers west of Athens, local volunteer efforts saved more than 280 animals, mostly dogs, according to rescue organizer Elena Dede.
Sasa and countless others were sheltered inside an indoor sports court, housed in collapsible wire cages with rubber balls to play with and metal water bowls to drink from, all while volunteers battled scorching heat and unpredictable, shifting winds.
“There was so much heat and the fire was so aggressive. It was changing directions all the time,” Dede said.
Richard Parr, director of the UK based Center for Wild Animal Welfare, called the rescue efforts by firefighters and local charities “heroic,” but warned that hotter summers are putting more animals at risk than current systems are equipped to handle.
“It is ad hoc, and it falls on the shoulders of private individuals, small charities,” Parr said. “The scale of the challenges they’re facing in terms of the number of animals affected and the areas of fire is gigantic and completely out of step.”
His organization is now pushing for a dedicated European Union animal rescue service, along with funding for designated fire refuges, safe spaces like ponds and rock piles where animals could seek shelter during future blazes.
For now, rescuers in Megara are focused on a different kind of challenge, reuniting displaced animals like Sasa with the families searching for them.
Local authorities have been helping match missing pet reports with the animals now in temporary shelters.
Dede is quick to note that even the dogs at the stadium are among the lucky ones.
“It was really hard for every volunteer and every person involved to survive the smoke and the stress,” she said.
Hundreds of animals are safe today because ordinary people refused to leave them behind in the smoke.
Do you think countries need dedicated emergency services specifically for animal rescue during disasters?
Source:
nypost – “Hundreds of adorable pets and wild animals rescued after wildfire sweeps through Greek mountains”