Worst Century Forest Fires in Greece

Worst Century Forest Fires in Greece



Aug. 2007  - Firefighters are beginning to gain 
ground against the worst forest fires to strike Greece in more than a 
century, but only after the blazes claimed 64 lives and charred much of 
Ilia prefecture on the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece. 
The country remains in the state of emergency and suspicion is rife that 
arsonists are to blame for more than half of the wildfires. To date, seven 
people have been arrested and charged with arson, including one person who 
is accused of setting fires at Zacharo, a village in Ilia where 37 people 
perished last week trying to escape the flames. 
Two new wildfires broke out in northwest Ioannina prefecture today, and 
some large fires are still burning, but many others have been doused by 
firefighters and aircraft from across Europe. Greek firefighters are 
getting reinforcements of about 120 men from Cyprus, France and Israel. 
Wednesday, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis expressed the gratitude of all 
Greeks to the firefighters and called them heroes.

Quick cash was made available to anyone who declared they had been harmed 
by the fire by Karamanlis' conservative government concerned about 
retaining power in elections slated for September 16. 
The prime minister said emergency allocations of 3,000 euros (US$4,096) 
per affected household were to be made "without delay," upon only "a 
simple solemn statement of the beneficiary, with only one signature." 
Greeks have suffered enough, he said, without being made to suffer more by 
bureaucratic processes. 
Banks are offering debt forgiveness for those who have lost close 
relatives or suffered major losses of property. Credit card and loan 
payments are being deferred for borrowers in fire-ravaged areas. 
Main opposition leader George Papandreou, visited Zacharo on Saturday, but 
refrained from criticizing the government. His party, the Panhellenic 
Socialist Movement, suspended its weekend campaigning and pledged 30 
percent of the party's election funds to people hurt by the wildfires in 
the Peloponnese. 
Wildfires have plagued Greece since July, but since Thursday at least 190 
fires broke out across southern Greece, and also near Athens, Sparta and 
other cities. Fire singed the edges of ancient Olympia, site of the first 
Olympic games, but was stopped before the ancient monuments were 
destroyed. 
Firefighters are still battling blazes across southern Greece and on Evia 
island, off eastern continental Greece, and fire officials fear the 
rekindling of wildfires where they already have been doused. 
Some villages on the Peloponnese peninsula are still being evacuated 
today. Homes in more than 100 villages were destroyed and many families 
lost livestock and olive trees. Damages are estimated in the billions of 
euros.


In Athens, thousands of people gathered outside the parliament buildings 
in protest of the government's slow and inadequate response to the fires. 
They expressed resentment at the "false statements of Karamanlis" from 
this past March that supposedly Greece was ready to face fires expected in 
the summer, while the government allocated only "minimal means" to fight 
them. 
Weather conditions, including record summer temperatures and hot dry 
winds, have made Greece and southern Italy a tinderbox, said the United 
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. 
Greece has experienced more wildfire activity this August than other 
European countries have over the last decade, according to data from 
sensors aboard European Space Agency satellites. 
Working like thermometers in the sky, the sensors measure thermal infrared 
radiation to take the temperature of Earth's land surfaces. Data from July 
1996 to Aug. 2007 were used to plot the number of fires occurring 
monthly. Results show Greece has had four times the number of fires this 
August as were burning in August 1998.

 
The data from these sensors is compiled to create the ATSR World Fire 
Atlas, which provides data to online users approximately six hours after 
acquisition. All available satellite passes are processed for the atlas. 
In addition to maps, the time, date, longitude and latitude of the hot 
spots are provided. The data are meant to be used for research and 
especially for fire prevention and management. 
But a report today in the "Economist" says Greek forestry officials were 
hampered by "lack of access to satellite pictures that could have enabled 
fire-fighters to find and douse blazes before they caused serious damage." 

In 2000, the European Space Agency and the French space agency formed the 
International Charter Space and Major Disasters, which rapidly creates 
tasks for earth observation satellites and delivers the resulting 
spacemaps to emergency response and civil protection authorities anywhere 
in the world. 
Finally today, the Hellenic national mapping and survey agency, part of 
the Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works, requested 
spacemaps of the Greek fires from the International Charter. 

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