What lessons can Greece learn from this year's raging wildfires?

euronews (in English)

The forest fire in Evros, Greece, was the largest single wildfire recorded in the European Union since it started keeping records in 2000. More than 80,000 hectares of land were destroyed, according to the EU.

Transcript

00:00 dust, ashes and damaged trees. This is what's left of the Dadia forest after wildfires raged

00:06 uncontrollably through Eros, Greece for 16 straight days. Some 80,000 hectares of land

00:12 were destroyed, but could this disaster have been prevented? Experts say they did not have

00:16 enough firefighters to battle the flames, so protecting residential areas was the first

00:20 concern.

00:21 "The priority was given to housing, infrastructure, and at the same time, it threatened Alexandroupoli

00:30 very quickly. So, you understand that everything showed that the priority is there, and the

00:37 forest fire continued to burn wherever it found greenery."

00:41 "Although we had a lot of fire-fighting forces, with vehicles and pedestrian parts, we were

00:47 left with only six cars, which had to cover a distance of many kilometers."

00:56 Authorities say preventive measures such as fire breaks and the clearing of weeds and

01:04 vegetation could have prevented the fires from spreading out of control, but many of

01:09 these municipalities were left to grow wild.

01:12 "Housing must be cleared of the fire zones. You can't have a fire station in front of

01:18 you, you can't have a fire engine, bulldozers, that throw trees so they can cut the front

01:23 of the fire, and because the fire goes to another point, close to the housing, you take it

01:28 from there, you lose all the effort of the people, volunteers, firefighters, firefighters,

01:34 firefighters, and you transfer it close to the housing, which you should do in April,

01:40 May, so you can burn your village."

01:44 With the forest fires becoming bigger and bigger and burning more areas, the word on

01:50 everyone's lips is a "forest fire". As they say, only forest fire fighters can limit

01:57 the big fires and solve a problem that is becoming more and more difficult.

02:02 From Dadiagia, Youron News, Giannis Karagiorgas.

02:06 (whooshing)

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