Need for on-the-spot coordination
When a wildfire swept down our Peloponnese mountainside in September 1986, neighbors pitched in to stop it just before it reached the handful of homes in its path. All the vegetation above the houses was burnt to a cinder, including a huge carob tree about 20 meters behind our own house; only a large charred stump remained. After a grafting from another tree, six or seven years later it had regained its former size (it is not watered). Nature does know how to regenerate itself and mass reforestation programs are not always necessary, as so many experts have been saying. In a television program last week on NET, host Constantine Zoulas interviewed two forestry experts and the pilot of one of the aircraft who fought the devastating blazes of the past two weeks. «Nothing is nature is irreversible,» said Costas Besis, forester and head of the Greek delegation to the UN on forestry protection and the environment. «The forests that were burnt last month in Ileia were mature forests, pine trees that had cones with seeds in them. «Meanwhile, in many places the fire has jumped over some areas, leaving them untouched. That means nature will act on its own to restore itself. We don’t need to spend a lot of money on reforestation. Nature knows best and chooses what is right rather than us going in and planting trees three meters apart. What we need to do in some places is protect the soil from erosion. That must happen now, before the rains.» Fighting on the ground Two other interesting things about forest fires to emerge both from that program and from letters to this newspaper were the vital importance of work on the ground to prevent fires and to extinguish them before they get out of control, and the importance of coordination among local people familiar with the terrain. Fighting fires from the air is not always possible, and often dangerous in Greece’s mountainous terrain, as became all too clear this summer, with the death of two pilots when their plane crashed. «Fighting these fires was very difficult because of the high winds, and the fact that the fires were spread over a large area on many fronts,» said Flight Lt. Dimitris Krikelas. Another panelist on the show, Socrates Tsichlias, editor-in-chief of Kathimerini’s magazines including ECO, noted that most experts are saying that fires should be dealt with from the moment they start by people familiar with the area. Aerial means should be complementary, not the main means. «If we want to save something in future, we have to change the way we fight fires,» he said. According to Besis, over the past 10 years we have become over-dependent on planes. «Planes are to reduce the intensity of the blaze in order to facilitate firefighters on the ground,» said Besis. The pilot agreed that aircraft are most successful in fighting fires that are small, close to base, or with a nearby flat body of water and when the weather is calm. Nikos Chlikas, a forester and president of the national union of geotechnical scientists, agreed that planes can’t put out a big fire. «It needs good coordination, knowledge of the area, and experts – whether forest workers or local residents – who know the terrain. «The local population who know what to do in these cases were not used,» he added. «The fire service has a military structure that works in a chain of command. You can’t put out fires like that – you need coordination, knowledge, people who can help locally and equipment… «Woodcutters are needed to make fire breaks with their chainsaws to stop the fire spreading. These are people who have been working in forests for years, and these are things that call for daily experience and knowledge.» In a letter to this newspaper, Dr Timothy Papamichos of Sydney recalled past practices that helped prevent forest fires. «The net effect of millions of people collecting and using timber from their environment every day of their lives was to create a balance in the environment that retarded the spread of forest fires. This practice has in all likelihood continued for thousands of years. «Over the years, as this practice has been abandoned, the volume of fuel on the forest floor has increased and I suspect it has done so manifold over the last 30 years so that forest fires are now inevitable.» It is now supposed to be the job of local authorities to keep forest floors cleared of undergrowth and deadwood. Chlikas said this does not happen because of a lack of funding. «The Pyrgos-Olympia forestry service had a budget of only 20,000 euros. How are they supposed to clear forests?» he asked. Besis said that since 1998, funds have been available to associations and municipalities to clean undergrowth in forests. «Some do, some don’t. It would not surprise me if some use those funds to meet other shortfalls in local government work. The responsibility also lies with every farmer who does not clear his fields. There is a law that requires people to clear underbrush from their land. I have never seen that provision being enforced,» he said. «Here we have decentralized everything but there is no delegation of responsibility. The minister allocates funds to local government, to the forestry service, to the regions. But who plans the priorities for forestry management? The municipality decides which roads should be maintained, then the forestry service decides to improve another road – it is chaos in the name of decentralization.» Reconstruction will be a long hard process. «Olive groves will take 10 years to produce a new crop. What we need to ensure is that the mountain population does not move away,» said Chlikas. «If they leave, the forest will be abandoned. We have to ensure they stay there, and find a way to help them farm or have an alternative source of income, whether market gardens, forestry, or ecological reconstruction.» Tsichlias emphasized the need for a long-term plan. «Perhaps it will be an opportunity to organize farming. There are scientists, there are reports already drafted, examples from other countries that show miracles can happen even among the ashes.» Chlikas agreed, saying that any program must be carried out by the central government with locals helping to implement it. «If there are firebreaks, the forests cleared of undergrowth, local people trained, and the forest cultivated, we would not have these fires. But these things have not been a top priority for the administration, central or otherwise.» Areas in many parts of the country that have escaped the flames have now organized patrols around the clock to be on alert for the first signs of fire. People in outlying areas are reportedly investing in water tanks and making firebreaks. Just how important it is for local residents to organize themselves was outlined in a letter in the August 29 issue of this newspaper from a reader in Australia. «We know of the fury of fire and … we learnt many things,» she said. «Here in Australia, we have volunteer community firefighters … called the Country Fire Authority (CFA). It is now large in numbers, well-trained, well-equipped and is perhaps the most crucial element of this country’s summer firefighting capabilities.» She also outlined the preparations she and everyone living in or near a forest takes at the beginning of every summer, which is probably valuable for people living in similar circumstances anywhere (http://www. ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=87208).
