ATHENS - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso headed to Athens to "show solidarity" with Greeks traumatised by forest fires which have killed scores of people and surged once again on Friday.
"President Barroso will be travelling to Greece this (Friday) evening in order to show the European Commission's solidarity with the population of Greece and in particular those who have suffered deaths in their families," an EU spokesman said in Brussels.
Barroso will fly by helicopter above affected areas with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis on Saturday morning and is also expected to meet people hit by the fires, officials said.
The blazes, which began a week ago and have killed at least 63 people, seemed to be losing intensity early Friday but broke out of control again in the region of Karytaina in the southern Peloponnese in the evening, burning four unoccupied homes in the village of Sarakinio, the Greek fire service said.
Two firemen from a Cypriot volunteer unit were lightly injured in the area, where around 100 firemen with 20 fire engines and 100 troops were operating, the fire service said.
The other area of concern was on the island of Evia to the north of Athens, although soldiers and firefighters had blazes there under control Friday evening.
But with temperatures set to top 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) at the weekend, many feared the fires would gain strength again.
The wildfires broke out on August 24 following the third heatwave the country had experienced this summer.
"The past days were days of battle against a fiery nightmare," Karamanlis said in a televised address on Friday.
"The struggle is not over, though the situation has improved."
The task for the increasingly weary fire crews was made easier by a drop in winds that had reached 70 kilometres (45 miles) per hour last weekend.
Authorities warned they were locked in a race against time to snuff out the fires before the winds picked up strength.
"When there is a heatwave it is always a concern, but it is above all else the threat from the wind that worries us," a fire service spokesman said.
"Today the wind is not strong, so the idea is to win the battle today before the wind picks up."
Meanwhile, funerals of the victims began to take place across the Peloponnese, where more than 40 people died.
The village of Artemida prepared for the burials of a mother and four children who have become the symbols of this disaster.
The charred body of Athanassia Paraskevopoulou, 40, who was holidaying in the Peloponnese, was found clutching three of her four dead children.
She and her family had tried to escape the inferno by car, but when an accident blocked the road they tried in vain to to run for their lives.
Although the fires raged over up to 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres), the government said the impact on the economy would be relatively low because the areas affected were mainly rural with small farms or olive groves.
"The damage to the economy is limited and its impact on economic growth is not expected to exceed 0.3 percent of gross domestic product," Economy Minister George Alogoskoufis said.
After flying over the Peloponnese to see the damage, European Commissioner for Regional Policy Danuta Huebner said the European Union could pay up to 600 million euros in aid this year to help Greece recover from the disaster.
"The Commission is prepared to go very fast with all the technical, legal and financial assistance that we can deliver so we can reduce the damage and the consequences as fast as possible," Huebner told journalists in Athens.
08/31/2007 19:38 GMT