Death by electric heater: In the early Sunday morning, thick black smoke emanates from the windows of an old two-story house in the Metaxourgio district of central Athens. Parents and children run in panic, fleeing the fire, neighbors and passers-by rush to help until firefighters arrive.
The man climbed onto the grate and helped the girl down from the second floor window. An 11-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl, children of refugees, were sent to the children’s hospital with burns of the upper respiratory tract, their condition is serious.
TV channel StarTV reports that both children are intubated and in critical condition. The fire department suspects that the fire was caused by an electric stove, which one of the families used to heat the house. Two children can survive, but on the eve of the fires became fatal to three people.
On Christmas Day, an elderly couple were found dead at their home in the village of Festa, Crete. A 95-year-old man and his bedridden 92-year-old wife were lying on their bed. A homemade stove in the room led the fire department to speculate that the elderly died after inhaling toxic fumes.
A few hours earlier in Athens, a man was burned to death when an electric blanket caught fire. On the same day, due fire tree garland, a family of 5 was injured. All received burns and carbon monoxide poisoning.
These are the latest cases in which people have died in their homes in a fire in the past two weeks, more than 15 people in total across the country.
According to the fire department, this is the largest number of deaths due to heating appliances of all types.
According to official data from the fire service, in just 8 days, from 12 to 20 December, 12 people died in the fire.
On December 20 alone, four people died in 24 hours due to fires in their multi-storey apartment buildings.
It is reported that the majority of the victims are elderly people, among the victims there are also people over 40 years old. The exception is two brothers, 12 and 13 years old, who died at their home in Kamatero on 14 December. The fire was caused by an electric heater.
Citing sources in the fire department, edition ethnos reports that most of the deaths were due to the use of electric heating.
The sharp rise in prices for fuel oil, natural gas and electricity has pushed many citizens towards more economical heating methods, sources said.
Most deaths have occurred from heat sources such as a stove, electric heater, or air conditioner.
In terms of home fire deaths, 2021 will be the worst year since 2010, experts say.
The Greek Fire Service advises citizens to use all heating devices with great care and caution, such as electric stoves, heated mattresses and blankets, fan heaters, air conditioners, fireplaces, and gas, oil and wood stoves. At the same time, according to firefighters, the most dangerous are cheap electric heaters with an open heat source (coil), made in Egypt, Turkey, etc.
You should also pay extra attention to Christmas trees, especially candles and electric lights of dubious origin.
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