Firefighting: Greece better equipped to face the multiplication of fronts

On July 27, 4,200 hectares went up in smoke on the islands of Kythera, Euboea, and in the Athens region. At the end of June, a fire ravaged more than 4,500 hectares on the island of Chios, in the northern Aegean Sea, and threatened the fields of mastic trees, from which mastiha, a unique resin used in food, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics, is extracted. And then, between July 22 and 24, "the most serious ecological disaster of the season," according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), took place in the Peloponnese, in Feneos, in the mountains near Corinth. More than 1,100 hectares of Kefalonian fir trees, a species unable to regenerate naturally after a fire, were destroyed in an area protected by the European Natura 2000 network.

Despite this grim picture, Greece faces the threat of wildfires this summer with more personnel than ever before. After recruiting nearly 1,600 firefighters in one year, the country now has 18,000 firefighters, including 2,500 seasonal firefighters and more than 1,500 forest rangers. One hundred and sixty-four new fire trucks have also been delivered to the fire service, and the country has 85 aircraft.

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