Finding the Spark: Greeks Demand Probe Into Causes of Wildfires
Source: Balkan Insight
Mobile phones beeped over and over across Greece this year, as the EU emergency service line “112” sent alerts, urging people to evacuate their homes because of wildfires, or warning them that access to forests is prohibited due to the extreme danger.
This year, up to August 20, Greece registered 6,063 agroforestry fires. At least one person died and over 470,000 hectares were burned, destroying virgin forests and properties and causing the death of countless animals.
The year was also the fifth most destructive fire season in the past 20 years, analysis conducted by the National Observatory of Athens, the public research centre and Meteo, a Greek research group, revealed in September.
As was the case over the past two decades, only a handful of these fires was investigated, leading experts to warn that without a fact-based and transparent understanding of how and why fires start, Greece will never be able to introduce effective preventive measures.
The original article: belongs to Balkan Insight .
