Between the regression of forests, that of crops and the overheating of cities, the Greek ecosystem appears to be in danger according to experts. Nearly 50,000 hectares have disappeared in the fires since the beginning of July. A particularly hot month, the worst in more than ten years.
“The winter was dry and the spring rains were not enough to maintain humidity” in the roots, notes Charalambos Kontoes, agricultural engineer at the Athens Observatory. Greece is hit by a long period of heat, strong winds and drought, “extreme climatic conditions (which) fan the fires”, as elsewhere on the Mediterranean rim, notes for his part Nikos Bokaris, the president of the Greek Union of Foresters.
The provisional toll of the fires, especially in Attica, the Athens region, and on the tourist islands of Rhodes, Corfu or Evia, amounts to “about 50,000 hectares burned”, deplores Charalampos Kontoes, stressing that in this regard, it is the “worst July” in 13 years. On Thursday, the disaster near Volos, in central-eastern Greece, mainly affected fields and the local agricultural association.
Around 660 fire starts, the vast majority quickly extinguished, were recorded in ten days, an average of 50 to 70 fires per day, Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias noted on Friday. Greece suffers forest fires every year, often deadly as in 2007 in the Peloponnese and Euboea (84 dead) or in 2018 in Mati, a seaside resort near Athens (103 dead).
Two years ago, fires, particularly in Euboea, killed three people during the summer and burned 130,000 hectares, including olive groves and pine forests that produce resin. Hundreds of hives had gone up in smoke.
This year they have so far resulted in five deaths. The environmental repercussions will be assessed after their extinction, according to the Greek branch of the WWF.
But “the repetitive fires endanger the ecosystem, the forests are transformed into agroforestry land, the scrub into scrubland […], the landscape tends to change and resemble African landscapes”, fears Nikos Bokaris.
In Rhodes, where the fires broke out on July 18, “much of the wildlife”, such as an endemic species of dama dama (European fallow deer), “was seriously affected; some deer were found charred,” laments Grigoris Dimitriadis, president of the local Environmental Protection Association.
The fires are also the source of the diffusion of polluting particles, at “record” levels in this month of July: “one megaton of carbon emissions between July 1 and 25, almost double the July record 2007,” noted the European observatory Copernicus.
Every six years or so, the mountains around Athens go up in flames, which “affects the ecosystem of the basin of the capital”, one of the most densely populated cities in Europe, gathering more than a third of the Greek population of 10.5 million souls, recalls Charalambos Kontoes.
For Nikos Bokaris, the situation in the Attica basin is also problematic because “there are few green spaces and the concrete constructions create a closed thermal environment”.
The Greek government, which blames the fires primarily on the climate crisis, is often accused of not doing enough to protect biodiversity and take action to prevent the fires.
“This year, prevention started a little late, but firebreaks or other preventive measures are not always the panacea when the fire takes on enormous dimensions”, remarks Nikos Bokaris, according to whom Greece received 55 million euros of European funds in 2022 and 86 million in 2023 to better prepare.
He advocates allowing burnt land to regenerate and prohibiting the conversion of “burnt forests into areas for cultivation or construction”, as often happens.
“The climate crisis did not appear suddenly and cooperation between government, local authorities and volunteers is necessary to combat it”, judge for her part Alexandra Messare, of the Greek branch of Greenpeace.
