athens -- Deadly wildfires racing across Greece threatened some of the world's most important antiquities Sunday as fire brigades struggled to gain control of what officials believed to be an arson-fueled inferno.
At least 58 people were killed as of Sunday evening in dozens of fires that have raged for three days, consuming entire villages and driving thousands of people from their homes. The government, which on Saturday declared a nationwide state of emergency, offered rewards of up to nearly $1.4 million for information leading to the arrest of suspected arsonists.
In a dramatic rescue effort Sunday, firefighters battled to save ancient Olympia, the legendary site of the first Olympic Games nearly 3,000 years ago. Flames moved up to the edge of the site, singeing the surrounding pine forests and the yard of its centerpiece museum, where several famous classical statues are housed. But firefighters backed by planes and helicopters managed to hold the flames back, officials said.
Residents in the area were evacuated in a chaotic flight from what was once the center of worship of Zeus, the king of the ancient Greek gods. The marble ruins of pagan temples contributed to Olympia's designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
"They managed to destroy our past, our present and our future," a man in his 30s said of the fires, speaking to Greek television from his home near Olympia.
"It's hell everywhere," said another, echoing the pleas repeated for days by desperate, frantic residents. "Please help us. . . . We are going to burn alive here."
Christos Zahopoulos, secretary-general of the Greek Culture Ministry, said sprinklers, water-dumping planes and the work of several dozen firefighters had managed to protect Olympia's archeological treasures and the stadium ruins where the Games began in 776 BC.
"We don't know exactly how much damage there is in the Olympia area, but the important thing is that the museum is as it was and the archeological site will not have any problem," Culture Minister George Voulgarakis, who rushed to the scene to oversee the handling of the emergency, told the Associated Press.
In Greece's southwestern Peloponnese peninsula, where the fires have wreaked their most devastating damage, flames moved to within two miles of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios, a 500 BC monument near the town of Andritsaina.
"We are trying to save the Temple of Apollo, as well as Andritsaina itself," Mayor Tryphon Athanassopoulos told Greek television.
