After second Mt Parnitha blaze, forest regeneration hopes fade
A fire that broke out on the slopes of the Greek capital’s Mount Parnitha on Saturday, June 29, destroyed a part of the forest, stretching from Katsimidi peak to the former royal estate at Tatoi, which had been completely razed by a conflagration three years ago. In fact, the large stretch of relatively bare land left behind after the 2021 blaze allowed firefighters to contain and extinguish the latest blaze in a relatively short time, and before the flames could reach the lush fir forest beyond.
And even though the Fire Service has reported that the extent of the damage from the June 29 blaze is significantly smaller than the 420 hectares razed in 2021, experts are pessimistic about the area’s ability to recover from two fires in such a short space of time, just as new trees were starting to take root and grow.
According to the terrestrial program coordinator for the Greek branch of the eco conservation group WWF, Nicos Georgiadis, the area destroyed by the 2021 fire had not needed any human intervention to recover and was in full growth mode when the latest calamity struck.
“There was a mature forest in the area before the 2021 blaze razed everything in its wake. A large number of pines and broadleaf trees were able to spring up from the ashes, but a part of that, around 100 hectares, was burned again on June 29,” says Georgiadis, who previously worked as WWF’s forest management officer.
Pines at low altitudes regenerate quite well thanks to their cones that only open up and release their seeds in the event of a fire and it was this process that helped them bounce back from the 2021 blaze. Now that the area has been burned a second time, it is unlikely this will happen again.
“The majority of the trees that were burnt a second time were pines and this is a problem for their regeneration; the broadleaves, however, are expected to recover. Either way, we will have to wait for a couple of growing seasons to see,” he adds.
“If the conifers do regenerate, then we’ll have a forest there again in 15 to 20 years, while for the broadleaf trees, this sense of forestland can be achieved faster,” says Georgiadis.
The head of the Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Alexandros Dimitrakopoulos, for his part, believes that this particular part of Parnitha may still bounce back, as it usually takes three medium-intensity fires within a period of 20 years to completely stunt growth.
“A forest cannot grow back when the seed deposits on the ground are depleted and when young trees that have not managed to produce seeds yet are burned again,” he says.
As a case in point, the professor refers to Daou on Penteli, another of the mountains surrounding Athens where successive fires have reduced growth there to brush.
With the latest Parnitha fire, Dimitrakopoulos says, there was “both good news and bad.”
“The good news was that the winds did not shift the direction of the fire, as this could have caused it to burn a virgin fir forest that would take a lot longer to regenerate. The bad news is that there is a good chance that we’ll have to give up on the idea of this part of Parnitha returning to as it was before,” he explains.
As we wait, the area has been put under observation by environmental conservation groups and the relevant state authorities, while a planting campaign is not unlikely down the line.
