By Michele Kambas

FRIXA, Greece Aug 29 (Reuters) - Surveying the fire-ravaged olive groves that surround Frixa, George Kostopoulos wondered whether the Greek state had forgotten about the tiny village that he and other locals had been left alone to defend.

"It was like we were hit by an atomic bomb," he said.

There were frantic scenes in Frixa two days earlier as fires tore through the hamlet in a national disaster that has killed at least 63 people.

Flames have scorched a black scar through the heart of the Peloponnese peninsula, a region of towering mountains and people with deep links with the land. Some fires were still burning in the region six days after they began.

"We called the fire brigade on Sunday and we were expecting airplanes to come. We didn't get any so we tried to stop it ourselves," said 50-year-old Kostopoulos, a municipal councillor. "Maybe we are no longer part of Greece."

Locals used garden hoses to dampen the flames and tractors to scrape firebreaks out of the vegetation. The fire raged for about 24 hours before engulfing the village. Farmland was charred and two homes were razed but no one died.

As in many areas of the peninsula in the south of the country, people in Frixa make a living from the land. Olive oil and animal husbandry are among the main sources of income for a population that is generally self-sufficient.

But acrid smoke now swirls around a landscape of rugged beauty.

"Everything we had has gone. We had oil, we lived off the olives. Its all gone," said Athanassia Kazakopoulou, 77.

Public criticism of the state's handling of the crisis has mounted, turning the fires into a key issue ahead of a snap parliamentary election on Sept. 16.

"The coordination was a joke," said Kazakopoulou.

The conservative government has promised aid to victims, starting with 3,000-euro instant cash handouts. But the people of Frixa wonder if they can ever rebuild their village.

Many of the 250 mostly elderly people who live here have already seen the young move away to urban centres like Athens and the fires have made it an even tougher place to earn a living.

Looking up at two gashes in the mountains above the hamlet caused by past landslides, George Seferlis said he feared the blazes might have further destabilised the land.

"I wonder what will happen when the rains come," he said "Right now I don't see much of a future."

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