Pendeli mayor says emergency response to fire was ‘exemplary’
![Pendeli mayor says emergency response to fire was ‘exemplary’](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/geraneia-orh-thumb-large.jpg)
The mayor of the Municipality of Pendeli, where Monday’s deadly wildfires started before spreading to the coast of eastern Attica, dismissed accusations of a delayed response from firefighters.
“The reaction of the state machine within the first few minutes was exemplary,” Mayor Dimitris Stergiou Kapsalis told state broadcaster ERT. “Within 15 minutes [of the alert], we had three water-dumping air craft.
“Even with my experience, I was surprised by the reaction of the volunteers and firefighters, and in their turn of the airborne forces,” Stergiou, whose municipality often suffers from wildfires of smaller magnitude, added.