While the Greek population watches, helpless, the ravages of the flames, anger is brewing against the authorities. The inhabitants denounce a lack of means and preparation in the face of a phenomenon which nevertheless repeats itself every summer.
“We have a difficult summer ahead of us,” warned Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. While the country has been plagued by violent fires since the start of the summer, having led to the evacuation of 32,500 people in Rhodes and Corfu on Sunday, many regions of the country remain, Tuesday, July 25, “on red alert”that is to say in “extreme danger” forest fires, with temperatures reaching 44°C. On Tuesday, a water bomber plane crashed on the island of Euboea while battling the flames.
In recent days, voices have been raised to denounce a lack of means and preparation in the face of fires. Vacationers forced to abandon their suitcases in the flames, walking for hours in the heat, residents crammed into gymnasiums… Testimonies in the press reflect the chaos that accompanied the evacuations. If since 2007, Greece is sadly accustomed to fires, all the lessons do not seem to have been learned.
Material and human resources sometimes lacking
“Climate collapse with peaks of temperature explains a lot, but does not excuse shortcomings”denounces the Greek daily I Naftemporiki, which emphasizes that “dGrief and nightmare take the turn of normality”. On the ground, facing the flames, the economic newspaper is ironic about the defective equipment of the relief forces. With a simple, but concrete example: the lances of tank trucks which are not adapted to taps. “Ihe firefighters only supply water from a single tap. There are five fire extinguishers and they are waiting to be filled from a fire hydrant, because they cannot be connected to the others”reports I Naftemporiki.
For its part, the local newspaper I Avgi affirm that “85% of the 3,500 fire engines are over 10 years old”. It also raises the question of human resources: 4,500 positions are vacant within the fire department and the average age of staff is over 45, according to the left-wing daily. Among the Greeks, the other point of tension concerns prevention. “Every year we pay about 240 million for forest protection. Of these, about 80% go to extinction and only 20% to prevention”informs I Avgi.
Deficiencies in the maintenance of forests
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) terrestrial program coordinator in Greece, Nikos Georgiadis, is adamant. “The real problem at the moment is the lack of a national fire prevention and plant waste management plan”, he says to World.
Greek forests suffer from a serious lack of maintenance, which makes them more vulnerable to fires. “Thirty years ago, cattle breeders, farmers, resin workers worked in the woods and managed this vegetation, but now this is no longer the case, the forests have been growing in an uncontrolled way for twenty years in Greece”, explains Nikos Georgiadis.
From a legislative point of view, there is no obligation for individuals to clear brush or prune trees, whereas municipalities do. But according to the mayor of Mati, quoted by The crossthe latter do not always do so, “for lack of means”. This seaside resort in the Athens region was also the scene, in 2018, of one of the deadliest fires in Europe.
A lack of cooperation and communication
Another pitfall is pointed out by the Greeks: the poor collaboration between the actors responsible for this fire management. “There needs to be better cooperation between all actors – scientists, government, local authorities, forest services”, judge at the World Theodoros Giannaros, fire researcher at the National Observatory in Athens.
In Loutraki, a town near the capital affected by a fire on Monday July 17, the town hall, for example, did not have the right to open firebreak zones in the forest. “We have to wait for the government to give its agreement to cut down even a single tree”, illustrious with the newspaper Release Ioannis Sklias, local leader of the left-wing Syriza party.
The inhabitants deplore, them, a lack of information as for their fate. According to Morgane Duclaux, a Frenchwoman living on the island of Rhodes interviewed on Sunday by franceinfo, “a lot of effort has been made by the local population, but, on the side of the authorities, communication has been very minimal”, with only “evacuation messages”.