Greek police kicked open a gate to a free a dog that was threatened by approaching wildfire.

The dog was trapped in a garden in Mandra, a town on the outskirts of Athens, but police managed to free it from behind a locked gate.

“We do not leave animals helpless, tethered or caged... Moments from the release of our four-legged friend from a plot in Mandra,” Greek police wrote on Twitter.

Fires are raging across Greece destroying forests on Rhodes and gutting homes close to Athens as a new heatwave loomed and threatened to further stoke tinderbox conditions across the country.