By Karolos Grohmann PYRGOS, Greece, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Greeks besieged banks on Thursday, clamouring for state handouts aimed at helping people hit by the country's worst wildfire disaster, with fires still raging a week into the crisis. Any Greek can get the government cash by producing identification and signing a declaration that he or she has suffered damagE. A government spokesman said the forms would be checked "later" to ensure they were honest. Critics said the system was open to massive fraud. On Wednesday alone, banks handed over more than 24 million euros ($33 million) in grants that the conservative government, facing an election next month, hopes will show it is reacting fast to fires that have killed 63 people and scarred vast areas. "Who are all these people? I don't recognise a single one of them and I have lived here all my life," said Ourania Fotopoulou as at least 400 people lined up outside the a bank in Pyrgos, a provincial capital in the stricken Peloponnese peninsula. "They have come from all over Greece to claim money which they don't deserve." Swathes of countryside and farmland have burned in Greece which has suffered Europe's most extensive wildfires in a decade, according to the European Space Agency. More than 500 homes have been razed and on Thursday some blazes raged on, one in the western Peloponnese, another on the island of Evia, north of the capital Athens. Some 10,000 people rallied outside parliament on Wednesday night to protest against what they said was government inability to prevent or fight the fires. The government's handling of the crisis could be crucial for its chances at a snap parliamentary election on Sept. 16. Centre-right daily Kathimerini said Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis had to hurry to recover from his government's initial impotence in the face of the fires. "The first round, that is the fight against the fires, was lost because of the poor performance of the state apparatus. The second round, that of reconstruction, has only just begun. It will be an uphill struggle within a tight timeframe," it said. A cartoon in the newspaper showed a helicopter flying over scorched countryside dropping banknotes from a water bucket while the pilot says: "Yes prime minister, as agreed, we're dropping 100-euro bills so the land will turn green again." The fires will cost Greece at least 1.2 billion euros ($1.6 billion) a government minister told Reuters, and the government plans to tap European Union emergency aid. Private citizens have already donated 38 million euros to a disaster relief fund, cash that the media has said is at risk of being siphoned off by fraudsters.
