An experienced Greek firefighter explains what went wrong in the country’s response to wildfires.
Elias Tziritis worries about the future while visiting the regions of Greece devastated by fires. “We start thinking about our children or grandchildren,” explains the environmentalist.
“But as a scientist, you can’t talk in terms of human times. It is necessary to think according to the schedule of nature. »
Born in Kalavrita, Tziritis is the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) wildfire coordinator in Greece. Its job is to monitor and protect the Mediterranean landscape.
He started working as a volunteer for a Swedish non-profit organization in 1995 before becoming a staff member in 2004. But his obsession with the lighter died long before that, and it was born out of fear. “I was a climber,” he says, “and I loved the woods.”
“After the big fires of the ’90s, I saw a lot of destroyed forests – forests that I love to walk in – and I said to myself: ‘I have to do something to protect this forest, so I can go for a walk. will come. »
Wildfire seasons are now longer and more intense
The fire season in Greece officially starts in May and ends in October, but Tziritis says those dates are becoming more flexible.
Frequent heat waves and reduced rainfall have blighted the southern European country’s landscape, with critics saying emergency services and government spending cannot keep up.
From what he sees on the ground, as a scientist and one of the Civil Defense’s 10,000 volunteer firefighters, the country’s fire season starts in April and ends in November. “These fire seasons are expanding,” Tziritis said. “They’re getting bigger and bigger, mega-fires are burning, and the problem is our response.” »
A “severe” shortage of firefighting resources
The deadly and record-breaking fires of 2023 – in Alexandroupolis, Attica, Rhodes and Corfu, among other regions and islands – demonstrated Greece’s “horrendous” lack of firefighting and “total lack of fire prevention and control”. Kostas Papadakis, a member of the Greek Parliament, said this.
The criticism was echoed by wildfire scientists, who claimed the dangerous season “exposed the inadequacy of Greece’s fire-fighting system” and was the catalyst for dozens of deaths and damaged infrastructure.
The Alexandroupolis fire burned more than 73,000 hectares, prompting the European Union’s Copernicus environment agency to call Greece the “eye of Europe’s 2023 firestorm.”
Fire prevention is important
A year later, in July 2024, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the country was preparing for a “particularly dangerous” summer as hot and dry weather fueled wildfires.
He said the government had spent “millions” of euros on forest fire prevention, and the European Union had given Greece six planes and a helicopter, as well as access to a 556-strong firefighting fleet.
But Tziritis believes that giant fires will continue to ravage the country unless the Greek government invests in prevention and firefighting resources, such as trucks and fire hoses. “This is not the solution,” he said. “They bring in new doctors, more firefighters, but they don’t work in the communities. »
Green Europe Observatory sent the allegations to Greece’s Ministry of Civil Defense and Ministry of Environment and Strategy, but they did not respond.
How Portugal changed course after the 2017 fires
Greece is not the first European country to experience deadly fires. Its southern European neighbor, Portugal, was engulfed in flames in 2017 when a firestorm killed 66 people and injured 44 in the country’s regional center.
Prime Minister Antonio Costa called the disaster, which destroyed 540,000 hectares of land, “the biggest tragedy of this kind that we have experienced in recent years” and recognized the state’s responsibility for its spread.
Julia Bognar, director of the Brussels-based European Institute for Environmental Policy, told L’Observatoire de l’Europe Green that Portugal is a “good example” of a government stepping up its response after a fire. According to him, this means that Portugal is ready to learn from “negative” events.
“Some examples are aimed at people living in rural areas. For example, giving them instructions on how to clean up litter in their areas… and ensuring that overhanging brush and trees are kept away from their homes.”
Changing forest cover has changed everything in Portugal
The most important change was agriculture: Portugal abandoned its dependence on monocultures. In the past, wood chips were used as canvas to light fires. “The country had large monocultures of eucalyptus, and eucalyptus trees are highly flammable and can create drier conditions,” Bognar said, adding that they increased the spread and intensity of fires.
“Since then, measures have been taken to ensure that these trees are not dangerous and to protect some other tree species as well. Therefore, the government tried to take more and different preventive measures. »
After the fires, the Portuguese government passed a law aimed at preventing the growth of eucalyptus plantations in its territory. Although the powerful timber sector held a nearby European stronghold in Spain, it left the country. Despite criticism from some sectors, many considered it a victory.
According to Bognar, it is normal for countries to be caught off guard by the scale and intensity of forest fires. After all, they were happening less frequently and less violently a few decades ago. But today, countries must prepare for the worst. “This can encourage them to take both response measures, i.e. higher responsiveness, and prevention,” he said.
Tziritis admits this. He said the Portuguese authorities responded to the deadly fires in 2017, ordered an investigation into the incidents, then implemented the report’s recommendations and restored public trust. “The government has done it,” he says, but in Greece “people are afraid of change.”
“How many people will lose their lives? »
Over the weekend, Tziritis visited the national park on Mount Xerovouni in northern Euboea. Although the landscape is now greener with shrubs and saplings, he says you don’t need to be a fire expert to understand that the forest is recovering. Green patches of pine, fir, beech and chestnut trees are now nothing more than “burnt tree trunks” surrounded by young shoots.
According to Tziritis, the landscape will likely recover as long as it doesn’t burn in the next 20 years. The outdoorsman admits it’s very difficult.
Although Tziritis has devoted his life to the natural landscape, he believes that fires not only damage the physical environment, but also have a corrosive effect on people’s lives.
“I don’t know how many national parks we’re going to lose or how many people are going to lose their lives or their incomes,” he said.
“It is not only about forest fires, but also about what happens after the fires. Desertification, erosion, social and economic problems and what is happening in local communities. This is one of Greece’s biggest problems. »