The death toll from fires raging through parched forests and fields in Greece rose to 60 on Sunday as firefighters and helicopters doused ancient Olympia with water and foam to prevent wildfires from burning the 2,800-year-old ruins.

Farmers battle a fire Sunday in the village of Varvasena, 15 kilometres south of ancient Olympia and about 330 kilometres south of Athens.
(Petros Giannakouris/Associated Press)

The historic site of the first Olympic Games is located at the west end of the Peloponnese Peninsula, a region hardest hit by at least 170 fires that have been raging across Greece.

On Saturday, the government declared a countrywide state of emergency to help mobilize resources to fight the far-reaching blazes. Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis also declared three days of mourning for the victims.

More than a dozen villages in the western region of the peninsula have been evacuated in recent days. Hundreds of homes and some 70,000 hectares of land have so far been consumed by flames.

The front of one fire Sunday reached ancient Olympia in southern Greece, burning trees and shrubs just a few metres from the site's museum. Although the surrounding forest was burned, the ruins were said to be undamaged after helicopters and aircraft covered the site with water and foam.

Earlier Sunday, Culture Minister George Voulgarakis headed to the ancient site to co-ordinate efforts to save the antiquities, the ministry said.

Villagers watch the fire Sunday in Paleo Varvasena, about 18 kilometres south of ancient Olympia.
(Petros Giannakouris/Associated Press)

Church bells rang out in the nearby village of Kolyri as residents gathered their belongings and fled late Saturday. Villagers returned in the morning to find at least seven gutted houses in the country's worst wildfires in decades.

Fotis Hadzopoulos, a resident of the village, said the evacuation was chaotic.

"Children were crying, and their mothers were trying to comfort them," he told the Associated Press.

The worst fires were concentrated in the mountains of the Peloponnese Peninsula in southern Greece and on the island of Evia north of Athens.

However, new fires also broke out Sunday in the central region of Fthiotida, one of the few areas that had been unscathed, a fire department official said.

Arson has been blamed in several cases, and seven people have been detained. The government also offered a reward of up to $1.36 million US for anyone providing information that would lead to the arrest of an arsonist.

At least 12 countries were sending reinforcements, and six water-dropping planes from France and Italy joined firefighting operations Sunday.

The region around the town of Zaharo, south of Olympia, has been the hardest hit. A massive blaze broke out in the area on Friday and quickly engulfed villages, trapping dozens of people and killing at least 37.

With files from the Associated Press