Wildfires reach outskirts of Athens during scorching heatwave

[planetgeli]

Your posts are appreciated zahir .

What is the feeling about people flying off to lay on a beach in Greece right now? There seems something morally wrong to me. But then perhaps there's an argument for 'they're helping the local economy'?

 

[zahir]

The economy in the big cities could survive without it but in a lot of places, particularly in the islands, there's nothing much besides tourism. So yes, for better or worse local economies depend on people continuing to fly out to lay on a beach.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Your posts are appreciated zahir .

What is the feeling about people flying off to lay on a beach in Greece right now? There seems something morally wrong to me. But then perhaps there's an argument for 'they're helping the local economy'?

Well they're already going on a foreign holiday during a pandemic so let's just say it's too soon to rule out the possibility that they may be selfish cunts.

 

[zahir]

The loss of life in the fire at Mati three years ago has led to a policy of blanket evacuation orders, which many villagers are understandably ignoring as they attempt to save their homes from the flames. It looks like one set of mistaken policies has been replaced by another.





As far as I know the area burnt on Evia is Greece's largest ever apart from the 2007 fires in the Peloponnese.

 

[zahir]

 

[cupid_stunt]

I have the Daily Climate Show set to record at 6.30pm every night, just started watching it, it's been extended from 15 to 30 minutes tonight.

Repeated at 9.30pm on Sky News - worth watching.

 

[zahir]

 

[zahir]

This is the best English language analysis I've seen so far on the government's handling of the fires.

Politicians have commissioned, and largely ignored, multiple reports on wildfires

In February 2019, the then leader of the opposition Kyriakos Mitsotakis welcomed the publication of an expert committee report on the management of forest fires in Greece, calling its recommendations “a blueprint for the steps we will follow”.

www.macropolis.gr

 

[zahir]

Fires still burning on Evia and in the Peloponnese. With firefighters and equipment from other countries the chances are now much better for containing them.

Fires menacing, more villages evacuated in Evia, south Peloponnese (videos) - Keep Talking Greece

Fire fronts in northern Evia are still active on Tuesday, the eight day since the devastating blaze

www.keeptalkinggreece.com

Evia

The fire service said 873 firefighters, 50 ground teams and 229 vehicles were fighting the blaze, including firefighters from Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Poland. Fourteen helicopters were providing air support, including three from Serbia, two from Switzerland and two from Egypt

 

[zahir]

The political fall out from the fires in Turkey

Turkey: Fires expose how Erdogan's regime is descending into farce and caricature

In the last two weeks, wildfires have destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of forest in Turkey's Mediterranean and Aegean provinces, killed eight people and forced thousands of people including tourists to flee.

www.macropolis.gr

 

[not-bono-ever]

not just Greece either

Algeria wildfire death toll rises as 25 soldiers killed

The interior ministry said earlier that fires raging east of the capital Algiers had killed at least 7 civilians.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[zahir]

Greece is on fire: capitalism, crisis and climate chaos

As fires rage and anger intensifies, swingeing cuts amid climate chaos have put the government on dangerous ground, reports Kevin Ovenden Wildfires are still raging out of control in Greece more than a week into the worst heatwave for 30 years.

www.counterfire.org

The scale of the destruction on Evia is hard to fathom. With fires still raging at the weekend, 430,000 of the 550,000 acres in the second most northerly municipality had been burned. The fires continue to advance.

Less reported, but crescendoing now is a wave of rage at the base of Greek society at the government and state. Crucially, the fury at the right-wing government is most intense among the immediate victims of the fires.

There was a concerted effort by the government and the media last week to present this as a natural disaster, “unprecedented”, the government on top of things, with the main political issue being “climate change”. That is, of course, global and the implication was that responsibility lies on each of us for human-driven extreme weather events or on “the international community”.

What is most remarkable over the last five days is how that has broken down. Arguments and angry responses that the right in Greece have always pretended are the preserve of wild leftists are now being voiced by small farmers, the woman who ran a guest house, villagers from conservative areas. The head of the Attiki region of the Greek chamber of commerce died of a heart attack trying to save his small factory.

There was the man who had lost everything telling a radio station that the fire front was 40 kilometers but there were only 170 firefighters. He added: “When Mitsotakis goes to [the annual trade fair] in Thessaloniki next month, he will be guarded by 3,500 police.”

Another at the weekend interrupted a journalist talking to his studio to denounce the government, ending with, “And they like to go on about anarchists burning things down in Athens [a favourite theme of the right]. Well, good for the anarchists. I shall become an anarchist.” He looked like an average middle-aged villager.

For three days the words of a younger man burned out of his house and livelihood were turned into a trending hashtag telling Mitsotakis to “fuck yourself”.

Again and again the same phrases have come from fire victims – words used earlier by counterparts in Turkey - “We have been abandoned.” “Where is the state?” “We are alone [in facing this]”.

By Sunday the municipality at the very north of Evia, run by the centre-right, put on its social media accounts: “Ourselves alone.”

eta: around 125,000 acres according to this





Going off this it's now Greece's largest recorded wildfire.

 

[zahir]

Arcadia is still burning

 

[zahir]

 

[zahir]

Greece wildfires 'slowly coming under control': mayor

Hundreds of firefighters were battling to control two massive wildfires in Greece on Wednesday, one raging for nine straight days, that have left hundreds homeless and caused incalculable damage.

news.yahoo.com

With the assistance of a huge multinational force, Greek fire crews were fighting to beat back blazes on the island of Evia and in the Peloponnese peninsula in rugged terrain. "I think we can say that the fire fronts are slowly coming under control," Yiannis Kontzias, mayor of the Evia town of Istiaia that has been under threat for days, told state TV ERT. "Yesterday, we saw the light of the sun for the first time in days," he said, referring to giant smoke clouds that have choked residents and obstructed water drops by firefighting aircraft.

The situation was more precarious in the mountainous Peloponnese region of Gortynia, home to dense forests and deep ravines. Christos Lambropoulos, deputy governor for the broader Arcadia region, said efforts were concentrated on keeping the fire from reaching the thickly forested Mount Mainalo. "Villages do not seem at risk at the moment... but conditions change by the hour," he told ERT.

 

[zahir]

Mitsotaki gamiesai - "fuck you Mitsotakis"

 

[Flavour]

what are they all saying in response to the tv crews?

 

[zahir]

what are they all saying in response to the tv crews?

"fuck you Mitsotakis" - it's the new meme.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Μητσοτακη_γαμιεσαι&lang=en

 

[zahir]

Arcadia

 

[Flavour]

Holy shit that's insane

 

[Pickman's model]

Arcadia

 

[zahir]

Polish firefighters saying the request for international help came too late.

 

[zahir]

As far as I know there isn't much international tourism on Evia. It's one of the places where Greeks go on holiday themselves. It's hard to see tourism taking off after the fires. The pine forest will regenerate naturally but it's going to look like a disaster zone for years.

Fire-stricken Evia should focus on Tourism, Greek Gov’t thinks - Keep Talking Greece

The area already devastated by the wildfires in Northern Evia is estimated at 505 square kilometers,

www.keeptalkinggreece.com

 

[zahir]

 

[zahir]

Rain on Evia, after storms in northern Greece earlier in the day.





But lightning has started fires in Halkidiki.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

Rain on Evia, after storms in northern Greece earlier in the day.





But lightning has started fires in Halkidiki.

don't think I've ever wished anyone to have a downpour before

 

[Serge Forward]

As far as I know there isn't much international tourism on Evia. It's one of the places where Greeks go on holiday themselves. It's hard to see tourism taking off after the fires. The pine forest will regenerate naturally but it's going to look like a disaster zone for years.

Fire-stricken Evia should focus on Tourism, Greek Gov’t thinks - Keep Talking Greece

The area already devastated by the wildfires in Northern Evia is estimated at 505 square kilometers,

www.keeptalkinggreece.com

It's true. 30 years ago I worked in Evia and lived in Μαντούδι, and it is indeed a very beautiful island with fantastic people. There was hardly any tourism back then, aside from Greeks going to places like Αιδηψός. This is really devastating.

#Μητσοτακη_γαμιεσαι

 

[steeplejack]

Siberian wildfire cannot be extinguished by human activity and may be the biggest recorded fire in human history



The Russians will monetise every last joule of burnable fossil fuel for the next 3-4 decades, regardless.

 

[zahir]

The Greek wildfires and the failings of the state

Climate change is a key factor in the catastrophic Greek fires, but this is also a story of deep structural and political issues at a local and EU level

www.spectator.co.uk

The current government bears a lot of the responsibility. The Greek forestry agencies asked the government for £15 million this year to carry out preventive work to prevent fires. They only received £1.4 million. The fire department entered the fire season understaffed by 4,000 firefighters. Their fleet is old and rusting. While a previous wildfire disaster in 2018 that left 102 people dead became a focal point of the New Democracy party’s campaign in the 2019 elections, once in power, they pardoned and even promoted some of the officials thought at least partly responsible at the time.

But the problems don’t start or end with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government. Since the late 90s, Greece has separated fire prevention and suppression. Fire prevention is the responsibility of the forestry agencies, while suppression has been assigned to the fire department. And while funding for the latter increased substantially over the years, the former was completely neglected. The has led to sealed off forests accumulating fallen branches, lacking paths and proper supervision for high voltage wires passing through, and a host of other issues that are simply too numerous to list. All of this was made much worse by the psychopathic EU-mandated austerity that took aim at the fire services, in a country with a permanent wildfire problem. These austerity measures were called ‘reforms’ at the time, but in the end this was a reduction in both available firefighters, equipment and expertise.

These issues have been highlighted many times over the years in a number of reports commissioned by parliament. After the 2018 wildfires however, the New Democracy party focused not on prevention or suppressing future fires, but in making sure that loss of human life was limited. While this is a noble aim, the result has been the issuing of a number of evacuation orders and (according to multiple reports) firefighters being told to not intervene unless lives are in danger. Experts and eye-witnesses suggest that the fires that surrounded Athens and those that are still burning through northern Evia could have been dealt with easily in their early stages if the authorities hadn’t focused so much on evacuations. The anger generated by these decisions is palpable and a clear political threat to the government.

What’s worse is that by now it’s been established that in the cases where evacuation orders were ignored, locals managed to save their villages when others burned. This sets a very dangerous precedent, as people might be more encouraged to ignore evacuation orders.

While I wish that this was being written with the benefit of hindsight, the truth is the fires are still going. Firefighters, volunteers and locals are fighting bravely to save what they can. The PM in the meantime has announced a number of measures that aim to alleviate some of the pain people in Evia and elsewhere are now feeling. It’s too early to say if that will be enough. But it’s not too early to say that in the face of unfolding climate change, we must abandon the short-termism and political games that leave us unprepared in the face of catastrophe.

 

[zahir]

Yiannis Baboulias | Attica Burning

As you approach Greece from the air, smog covers the land like a curtain – a thick grey line separating the deep blue...

www.lrb.co.uk

Successive governments have ignored reports commissioned by parliament which advise a wholesale restructuring of the way the country deals with wildfires. The main recommendation is for fire prevention and suppression to be decentralised, turned over to local authorities which know their areas best. Instead, we’re seeing ever greater centralisation. Firefighters have been dispatched to areas they didn’t know, leaving them unable to do their work effectively. Often they couldn’t get to the affected areas at all. Anger against the government is everywhere. And the fires are still raging.

One inevitable consequence of these fires – as with the effects of global heating everywhere – will be a greater internally displaced population. An official in northern Evia said that 90 per cent of the local economy has been destroyed. Tied to the forest, agriculture and tourism, it’s unlikely to return for many decades. The young are planning to leave, to find work in Athens and other cities. But after a decade of austerity, the Greek economy will find it hard to absorb them. Even if it does, current policy is to remove as many workers’ rights and protections as it can get away with, using the pandemic as cover.