Volunteer firefighter Irini Malesi has been hailed a heroine as she fought to save the homes of her fellow Greeks whilst her own house burnt to the ground.
Malesi was fighting fires in Varybobi, Athens with the volunteer group to which she belongs, without knowing that the house where she grew up and lived until today, was among the first houses destroyed completely.
"At one point I asked to go and see what was happening to my house and I saw it in the flames, but I could not do anything. "We had to leave, to continue," she explained during a media interview.
“We moved to Varybobi just for the forest and now there is nothing. It's a good thing that my parents were not inside. As soon as I saw it, I cried and called my father to tell him that our house was on fire. He told me to leave, not to look it… "