Confronting the wildfire paradox
With forest management neglected, more firefighting equipment does not help, experts say
Experts called it the “wildfire paradox.” The Fire Service may be getting more firefighting equipment, including assistance from abroad, it may nip more fires in the bud before they can spread, but as long as flammable material keeps accumulating in the forests, those fires that start are becoming more difficult to contain, with the largest of them burning for several days.
“We augment our forces, we are able to put out fires up to a certain level, but without forest management we are building up biomass that makes the next incident more explosive,” says Gavriil Xanthopoulos, a researcher at the Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems and Forest Products Technology.
He adds that even if Greece gets to have 150 firefighting planes and helicopters (it now has 89, of which 49 are leased, up from 83 in 2022 and 76 in 2021), they may not be enough if the underlying causes are not addressed. Greece also has more fire engines than ever, 2,079, up from 1,969 in 2022.
The prevention versus suppression debate is not new. It came up urgently after the fires that destroyed a large part of northern Evia and parts of Attica, close to Athens, in 2021.
This year’s large wildfires spread quickly with the assistance of the wind and because of the preceding heatwave, burning homes as well as forests.
“Conditions are difficult, we must acknowledge that. Also that many fires that started were contained. But there was nothing different compared to previous years,” Xanthopoulos said, adding that simultaneous large fires are difficult to manage.
“Empirically, it is difficult to deal with two large fires in Attica,” a recently retired senior Fire Service officer told Kathimerini.
Suppressing a fire becomes even more difficult when it breaks out in, or reaches, a forest close to urban areas, where homes and trees mingle. “It’s real urban warfare there,” the retired firefighter says. “Will you save the house or try to stop the fire?”
The first fire, in the area of Kouvaras, southeast of Athens started in a road median and the wind quickly helped it spread up a hill and a nearby mountain, local officials said. According to the fire service, the blaze had a front of 12 kilometers just two hours after it was first reported. Chasing a fire is like chasing an air mattress at sea when the current takes it away, another veteran firefighter says.
