How lessons from past fires could help save Greece’s forests and farmland

A new survey of the Alexandroupolis fire of 2023, deemed Europe’s largest, suggests lessons for early containment

Firefighters outside the village of Koila, north of Alexandroupoli, in August 2023

Until last Sunday, it appeared the Greek government might survive the summer unsinged by another major fire like the one that claimed 95,000 hectares of Western Thrace near the Evros River in August of last year.

The fire service was putting out 30-70 fires a day since June, without any of them getting out of control. It seemed that drones brought in this year to provide early warning and theatre awareness had done the trick.

And yet, an estimatedr 10,000 ha of Attica burned on August 11-14, the flames reaching inside the Athenian suburbs of Penteli and, for the first time, Vrilisia.

The opposition Syriza has lampooned the government for poor civil protection and fire management.

Has Greece really been doing worse than other Mediterranean countries?

In the five-year period 2019-2023, Greece lost a total of 353,648 ha to fires, an average of 70,700 ha a year, or 0.53 percent of its surface area.^[1]

Over the same period, Italy averaged losses of 0.26 percent of its surface area a year, and Spain 0.24 percent.^[2]