Quote from maxpi:
What were they doing in the way of managing their forests? In the US the publicly administered forests burn with great regularity and the private ones NEVER EVER do. That is because on the private land the administrators are allowed to use machinery to make roads for firefighting and brush clearing and then should a fire breaks out, guess what, they get on their trucks and they put the fire out, what a concept...
Not that easy , maxpi.
Greece, (i read somewhere, sorry no linky) has virtually no proper zoning or official gov sector mapping, the worst in europe.
Now, just fighting a fire-you dont necessarily just waltz in with a little tanker and put a fire out, no matter how many tracks or trucks you have, although obviously your not going to do much without access.
Heres a little story, about the alps/canberra bushfires years and years ago, bro was a fiery;
They saw things there, nobody had ever seen before-not for 70 years or so.
Ill put them in point form, for dramatic effect-situation, maximum fuel load, gale force winds fanning it-
-They saw entire hillsides of pine trees, (plantation), full size-all lying on their side, pointing in one direction, flattened. That was just the wind front.
-In a particularly sheltered spot, where the wind couldnt reach, they found a kangaroo, standing up-dead and blackened. And get this-the grass, not 5 metres from it, was unburnt; dead, but no charring, no black bits. Same with the sheep-grass was browned off and half dead, but all the sheep are hoove's up, from sheer radiant heat/asphixiation probably.
-At one of the fire stations, numerous cars were burnt, but a few vanished altogether; there was a big puddle of molten steel where the engine used to be, but the lesser steels and alloys hadnt melted-they had burned up, vanished altogether.
- a chopper pilot, calling in the fires at what was considered "reasonable" safe altitude, duck and dove out of there, when he witnessed a chunk of a medium size tree travelling vertically in a nearby updraft, past his altitude.
Sounds like the greek fires are out at this point, cant be much left to burn, no doubt the gov will blame this poor planning on the fire departments, as they usually do.
Bummer.
