As wildfires burn in the countryside west of Athens, a second rescue effort has been unfolding behind the fire lines, this one aimed at the pets their owners didn't have time to take with them.

Evacuation orders across the region left an unknown number of pets locked in yards, tied in courtyards or hiding under houses. Volunteers with the Greek animal welfare group Dogs' Voice have spent days working the edges of the burn zone with crates, pet food and medical supplies, setting up improvised collection points and coaxing panicked animals into transport.

Founder Elena Dede told Greek broadcaster Open TV on Monday that the group had already relocated more than 160 animals to emergency shelters in two towns on the fire's western flank.

The timing has been brutally tight. In one case, volunteers pulled 12 dogs out of a house that was fully consumed by fire a few minutes later. Every animal survived.

(MORE: Wildfire smoke can hurt your pet before you notice)

With crews still working active fire zones, Dogs' Voice has issued an urgent appeal for help at its station inside an Olympic stadium in Megara, a coastal town about 25 miles west of Athens, where rescued animals are being housed. The group says it needs hands-on volunteers on site, plus foster homes willing to bottle-feed three orphaned puppies and seven newborn kittens — round-the-clock work shelter staff can't absorb while rescues continue.

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Injured wild animals are typically routed to ANIMA, a separate rehabilitation group in the Athens area.

Why volunteers are doing this work

Unlike in many countries, Greek animal welfare organizations receive no regular government funding. They rely almost entirely on private donations to cover food, veterinary care and medication, with local councils occasionally supplying food for street animals. That leaves disaster response to whoever shows up.

The broader fire picture

Greece is in the thick of a Mediterranean fire season that has grown longer and more intense as summers heat up. The country's Civil Protection agency — its national emergency management body — issued a very high fire risk warning for the Athens region and two other areas on Aug. 4, then extended similar alerts through Aug. 6. Separate fires have forced overnight evacuations on Kefalonia, an island in the Ionian Sea off Greece's west coast.

The current fires are burning through a landscape with little margin left. Mapping released this week indicates roughly 42% of the forest cover in the Athens region has burned between 2017 and 2026.