Greek fire fighting airplane dropping water on fire outside northern port city of Thessaloniki

Greek fire fighting airplane dropping water on fire outside northern port city of Thessaloniki, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Traditionally, August has always proved to the most dangerous month in Greece for forest fires. High temperatures, strong winds and difficult terrein have always proved a lethal combination for the nation's wooded areas.

This time it is the turn of the northern port of Thessaloniki to be the latest victim of forest fires which broke out this afternoon in the Seix Sou district, close to the city's zoo. The fire which is still raging burnt woods around several residential areas but so far there have been no reports of either burnt homes or casualties.

According to latest official reports the fire which is being fought on three different fronts is under partial control with several fire fighting aircraft taking part in the operation.

The Seix Sou areas was devastated in 1997 when a similar fire destroyed much of the pine woods surrouding Greece's second city.

www.demotix.com/news/804221/forest-fire-hits-greeces-seco...

For The political background to Greece's forest fire crisis

"Interagency coordination obstacles and a weakened forestry service continue to threaten Greece's ability to adequately protect its forests, wild lands, and meet climate change targets. Greece recently agreed to associate with the Copenhagen Accord through the EU (ref A), but by not addressing its growing wildfire problem, it leaves a significant gap in its climate change priorities. 


Post has engaged many forest policy officials, pressing for a forest protection policy based on prevention rather than focusing on reactive measures. Greek officials have been thankful for U.S. support, primarily U.S. Forest Service (USFS) training through a $2.1 million USAID package that is set to run out in 2010. In recent meetings, Greek officials have been somewhat responsive to Post's engagement, stating their hope to establish legal forest boundaries and ramp up public prevention campaigns. 


As the wildfire season approaches, Post continues to encourage responsible policy from the Government of Greece (GoG) to protect the country's natural environment, as part of the global effort to combat climate change."


wikileaks.org/cable/2010/02/10ATHENS99.html

Greek forest fires 2009

Greek forest fires 2009, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

Since the government has decided to let the country burn to the ground, it's time to change the tourist board's advertising campaign.

Wildfires engulf Greek towns and villages

Photo from Indymedia Athens

Forest fires are continuing to rage out of control in the Attica region of southern Greece, threatening towns and villages in the area. Agios Stephanos, Dionysios and Palia Pendeli have all reported that the fire has reached the outer suburbs and authorities are asking inhabitants to evacuate the area.

The wildfires which started on Friday evening have now spread with a front covering 42km with smoke and ash reaching as far as the capital, Athens. As a result hospitals, old people’s homes and army bases have all been evacuated.

With the fires covering such a wide area local fire fighting forces are unable to deal with the scale of the event. Italy and France has already sent specially equipped aircraft to help in the fire fighting effort. Ground based efforts have been hampered by the difficult terrain leaving the only effective alternative airborne fire fighting helicopters and planes.

Greek TV channels have been filled with pictures of homes and farms being devoured by flames bringing back memories of the 2007 fires which claimed 84 victims in the Peloponnese region.

The authorities have not announced whether there have been any casualties so far, however, the news services have reported that many local inhabitants have refused to leave their properties, despite repeated calls by the police.

Although Greece regularly has wildfires a study carried out by the Athens University of Economics suggested that there was a direct link between their destructiveness and national elections. According to Spyros Skouras and Nikos Christodoulakis half of the forest lost through fires in the last 54 years took place in the 16 years in which elections were held.

The last serious fires to hit the country in 2007 took place just weeks before parliamentary elections and most political analysts consider the announcement of new elections within the next few months a certainty.

Forest fires ravaging Greece again

Fire Morning, originally uploaded by orestis f.

I am watching the terrible images of the forests in the Attica region around Athens being devoured by fires which seem to be raging out of control. As well as hundreds of acres of woods many homes, farms are villages are also threatened with destruction.

Once more the country's natural beauty is being destroyed through a mixture of government indifference and state sponsored idiocy. Today's Kathimerini newspaper (the Greek equivalent of the Independent) ran an article noting the connection between the destructiveness of forest fires and general elections. According to Spyros Skouras and Nikos Christodoulakis, professors at the Athens University of Economics in the period from 1954 to 2008 half the forests burnt were lost in the 16 years in which the country held elections (click here to see the study in English).

The current round of wildfires bring back bad memories of the 2007 debacle (another election year) in which 84 people lost their lives in Southern Greece.

To find out the latest news check out the #grfires hash tag on Twitter.

Waiting for change

Last night's protest

Last night about a thousand people, dressed in black, came to mourn the tragic events that have overtaken Greece over the last week. Without fancy speeches and the like they quietly protested the awful mishandling of the whole affair. The mood outside the White Tower in Thessaloniki was one of sadness and muted anger and the atmosphere reminded me more of a funeral than boisterous, carnival feel that accompanies most public gatherings.

Protests in Greece

People gathered throughout Greece to show their unhappiness with the government's handling of the forest fire crisis.

Protest rally

no title, originally uploaded by spirofoto.

If you are in Thessaloniki this evening and wish to express your anger at the way the forest fire crisis has been handled then come to the White Tower at 7pm. I'll see you there. If you are in Athens then head for Syntagma Square.

Στην Αθήνα το ραντεβού είναι στην πλατεία Συντάγματος. Στη Θεσσαλονίκη η συγκέντρωση θα πραγματοποιηθεί στο Λευκό Πύργο.

Ας είμαστε όλοι εκεί!


Γκούτσιου Αριστέα
Υπεύθυνη Επικοινωνίας

Φερών 5, 10434 Πλ. Βικτωρίας
Τηλ. & Φαξ: 210-8838914

E-mail: info@anthropos.gr

www.anthropos.gr

A life less seen.

A life less seen., originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

The future for many of those who survived the fires in Greece. Bleak doesn't even begin to describe their fate.

Enough is enough - ΦΤΑΝΕΙ ΠΙΑ

TODOS SOMOS GRIEGOS, originally uploaded by lisistrata94.

This is an appeal for citizen to gather in order to protest at 7pm, Wednesday August 29th, the terrible events that have overtaken Greece in the last few days.

In Athens - Syntagma Square

In other parts of Greece - Any central square or public meeting place.






Sweet Harmony - The Beloved

is it right or wrong
try to find a place
we can all belong?
be as one
try to get on by
if we unify?
we should really try...

all this time
spinning round and round
made the same mistakes
that we've always found
surely now
we could move along
make a better world?
no it can't be wrong

let's come together
right now
oh yeah
in sweet harmony

let's come together
right now
oh yeah
in sweet harmony

let's come together
right now
oh yeah
in sweet harmony

let's come together
right now
oh yeah

time is running out
let there be no doubt
we should sort things out
if we care
like we say we do
not just empty words
for a week or two

make the world
your priority
try to live your life
ecologically
play a part
in a greater scheme
try to live the dream
on a wider scene

let's come together
right now
oh yeah
in sweet harmony

Tragedy slips into farce

Photo by Onironautis

I know many people, especially those whose with heightened environmental sensitivities who have turned off their TVs. They cannot bear to see the terrible images of destruction that are flooding the screens here in Greece. Their grief is such that they cannot take any more. For four days we have seen half the country burn while the authorities seem to be helpless to bring the situation under control.

Sadly, the predictions I made yesterday are becoming reality even more quickly than even I could have imagined. The fact that the national elections are almost upon seems to have degraded the level of political debate even further. People are dying, homes are being lost and huge swathes of Greece are still burning while Nikitis Kaklamanis, mayor of Athens, screams about an "asymmetrical threat" (ασυμμετρικη απειλη), a freshly coined term for terrorism.

In doing so he reminds me of the incredibly cynical spin attempt by the Spanish prime minister, Aznar, who rushed to put the blame for the Madrid train bombings on ETA in order to gain votes on the eve of the national elections. A trick that he paid for dearly at the polls when the truth came out. Hell, even I didn't buy into his explanation and I'm no expert on terrorism.

While the fires have certainly been started in part by arsonist, pyromaniacs and the like, the fact that the authorities have failed miserably to deal with them, be they the result of malicious action, indifference or plain stupidity is testament to the fact that the present government, as the previous ones before it, have not taken the problem of forest fires seriously.

To say that this disaster is the result of some organised terrorist action is a amoral attempt by the New Democracy government to deflect criticism about its role in this catastrophe. I really hope it bites them in the ass in the elections.

Blood tax

GREECE FIRES, originally uploaded by UNIQUE2007.

As forest fires continue to rage across much of Greece, the death toll has reached 52, an unprecedented number for a country so used to dealing with this kind of natural disaster. While there have always been deaths associated with fires they were usually limited to members of the fire brigade or the occasional inhabitant of an isolated village.

Alas, this tragic loss of life is another example of the "blood tax" (φορος αιματος) that the state requires in order to do an adequate job of enforcing the laws already on the books. Coaches full of kids have to slam into trucks before the police decide to do regular checks on drivers. Planes have to fall out of the sky before the airports upgrade their equipment. In fact, unless people die and then only in large numbers and in a spectacular manner do the authorities decide that it might be time to do the job they are entrusted with.

What will see in the next is the ugly spectacle of the politicians gleefully making capital out of the tragedy and the conspiracy theorist coming up with ever more convoluted schemes "proving" that this was all a carefully calculated plan by ..... (choose the political party/country/religious/ethnic group you despise most).

For more updates in English click here, in Greek here.

At home

The latest heatwave refuses to abate. Even at 1am the temperature is still around 30c, making sleep next to impossible unless you have air conditioning, which I don't ("Global warming? Balderdash! Can't feel a thing."). On a more tragic note the latest round of forest fires in Southern Greece have claimed 37 lives so far. What most people don't appreciate about such fires is how quickly they can move. One minute you think you are at a safe distance and within a frighteningly short time the front has raced towards you.

I remember volunteering to help fight the the 1997 fire which eventually destroyed most of the Seix Sou forest that surrounded Thessaloniki and almost getting cut off by it as the wind suddenly changed direction. Literally, you have seconds to make decisions that could mean life or death. A truly scary memory.