Greece is Burning

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Barnabas
Wouldnt it be good to forbid building on burned lands?

you might be surprised if i told that it is actually already illegal!
however, it turns that is becomes "hard" to determine what is burned land...

[Solly]

Originally posted by General Ludd



My greek cousins are divided on wther it was albanians or the greek government seting the fires.

Maybe it was the Macedonians

[ajbera]

Originally posted by MarkG
however, it turns that is becomes "hard" to determine what is burned land...

You'd think all the scorched and burnt stuff would be a giveaway.

[axi]

Hi everybody.

A wildfire burned through my girlfriend's village in Leontari, Arcadia on Saturday. She was here at the time, as well as her brother, but her mother was evacuated with most villagers by bus, while her father was stranded in the nearby town of Megalopoli. Luckily the house was saved, only the garden burned. Only 8 houses were burned there and 5 people got trapped in their car and died. The whole municipality, consisting of 20something villages got burned. They currently are without water, electricity and telephones. They make do with generators and cellphones, but the lack of water to wash off the dust is what strikes worse. They hope to have the pumping stations repaired today or tomorrow.

My godfather's hometown is Zacharo, the place that was hardest hit from the wildfires. His house is very close to the town, towards the seaside so it was spared. His olive trees were burned, I don't know how many acres though.

Also my friend George saw his grandfather's village near Diakofto, Achaia get burned in July. The house was saved, but their small vinyard nearby was lost.

Apart from that, a few comments:

- The government minister that spoke of "terrorist plot" and "assymetric warfare" is a jerk. If the goverment think that this is so, then they should recompensate the victims as victims of terrorism and not as victims of disaster (meaning larger sums, lifetime pensions and so forth).

- Olympia got in danger because of the fire brigade's incompetence (for not stopping the fire when they could many km before that point and for not reinforcing the local forces in time). Also because the automatic firefighting perimeter that was installed was poorly maintained. Afterwards they had the nerve to go on TV and say everything worked as it should.

- The fire brigade commanders seem to have a habit of underestimating the potential danger of wildfires that go off in remote areas and tend to not send substantial forces from the beginning, resulting in them having to commit many more forces later, when the fires have gone out of control. This happened in the case of the mt Parnes disaster and in Corinthia and Achaia in July and also in Zacharo, Elia last Friday.

- The most striking case of neglect is the wildfire of Grammos, in a remote area of western Macedonia, where a wildfire was left for days to burn a huge part of a forest of pine because it was far away from inhabited areas (also because nobody had cleared the area from landmines and artillery shells dating from the 1949 civil war battles, so there were frequent explosions).

- The Canadair CL-215/CL-415 waterbombers are by far the best aircraft around for such jobs. The water has to be dropped with precision from a very low altitude to do any good and the planes must be able to deal with the high temperatures and turbulence. The russian planes, while heavier, have to fly too high and straight. The best heli for the job is the Sicorsky/Ericsson S64 (the orange one with the snorkel) which can do even more precision drops and can fly with even worse conditions.

- Nothing is more uplifting than watching a line of 6 Canadairs coming to the rescue at 50-100m, while being so close to actually get showered in the waterspray.

[Kontiki]

Canadians saving the Euros yet again

Greeks trapped by the fires

Me going to Greece in two weeks

[MarkG]

Nothing is more uplifting than watching a line of 6 Canadairs coming to the rescue at 50-100m, while being so close to actually get showered in the waterspray.

free showers in a hot summer day

[Barnabas]

Are the churches praying for rain?

[Kuciwalker]

If firefighters came all the way from Canada, I'm curious if the US sent some as well.

[Zkribbler]

This story is finally turning up on U.S. network news.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
If firefighters came all the way from Canada, I'm curious if the US sent some as well.

Canada certainly isn't stretched thin in any other endeavor.

[Patroklos]

Its not those damn Goths again is it?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
If firefighters came all the way from Canada, I'm curious if the US sent some as well.

the reference is to airplanes bought from canada used by most countries for this type of operations....

[Wezil]

We do have some experience with fighting forest fires.

[Kuciwalker]

As do we...

[Varwnos]

Latest stats depict the disaster as costing roughly 2 billion euros, or around 0,7% of the greek GDP (1/4 trillion $).
Quite impressive, for a single event

Although the area burning is quite large, it is rural. Sectors affected seem to be limited to agricultural and local tourism.