After the fires

“The income of these villages comes from livestock and olive oil. As you can see these have been destroyed utterly. How are people here going to live?”

Greece’s garden

The Peloponnese is known as the garden of Greece and what happened here has undermined the economic foundations of this entire region.

Greek fires aftermath

“What are they going to do? They will weep for their fate. They need to go and find work. Are they going to replant the trees and wait 40 years to rebuild their income? They will die.” Sofia Destouni, a villager from Saint Elias

Sotis and his family live in the village of Saint Elias which is named after the church at the top of the hill.

It is as pretty as a postcard, but it was thanks only to the men of the village that it was not destroyed.

Generations have farmed the land here and suddenly they feel that they will be the last.

Sofia Destouni, a villager, told al Jazeera: “What are they going to do? They will weep for their fate. They need to go and find work. Are they going to replant the trees and wait 40 years to rebuild their income? They will die.”

Compensation

How communities like this cope after such a disaster seems to a great extent to come down to how much they lean on each other, finding solace where they can.

Father Kostas, the village priest, said: “The advice we are giving people is to be loving among themselves so as to pull through this very difficult time to have patience and facing God.

“But their lifetimes’ labours have been destroyed in one moment.”

Farmers were turning up at the agricultural bank to fill out the forms which will give them immediate compensation from the government: $14,000 if you lost your house, £4,500 for the loss of an olive grove.

It will keep them going for a while, but it is nothing like enough to see them through until the trees grow back.

The Peloponnese is likely to feel the economic consequences of the great fire for years to come.