Northern Attica in constant ring of fire
Region’s once ‘privileged’ settlements have turned into a red zone for natural disasters
The hitherto “privileged” parts of northern Attica have become a red zone for natural disasters. Despite their vulnerability, most peri-urban settlements that have developed near forests lack local fire protection action plans.
According to the National Observatory of Athens, the burned areas of 2009 and 2024 in northeast Attica overlap by 60%. This indicates that a forest that had recovered from fire has burnt again, making restoration more challenging. However, it begs the question of whether any lessons were learned from what went wrong.
An experienced member of the Fire Service told Kathimerini that the repetition in the course of large fires should be accompanied by some plan to prevent something similar from reoccurring.
“We know from the direction of the wind where the fire will go. In some cases, residents who have previous fire experience may know it and now it has become an experience for them,” he said. “So, based on this data, we need to look at where a fire with these characteristics could be stopped and take targeted actions to open large firebreaks in specific places. Opening up bald spots that will allow us to manage it more easily,” he noted.
“It was fire with meltemi (dry wind). You know where it starts and where it will end, you know that there was another fire headed there. You have to keep it narrow from the back so it doesn’t spread,” added Gavriil Xanthopoulos, research director at the Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems.
A former high-ranking Fire Service officer, noted that “fires burn at night as well as during the day.”
Once the fire had opened up beyond a zone of tens of kilometers, the forces moved to the next points at risk, resulting in flare-ups and the fire returning to places that had been threatened earlier.
A bad situation was made worse when the fire jumped from the forest to residential areas. “Containment actions were taken, we were trying to have a plan, but when the forest incident became an urban one we had to first protect the houses and then chase the front,” one firefighter told Kathimerini.
As a preventive measure, owners of houses in close proximity to forests or woodlands were asked to remove pruned branches, firewood and gas cylinders. It is not clear, however, whether and to what extent checks were carried out on the implementation of these cleanups.
