Agrafa: forest fire at Kerasochori in Evrytania

A forest fire broke out on the afternoon of Wednesday 19 August at Kerasochori, in the Municipal Unit of Vyniani in the Municipality of Agrafa, in the Regional Unit of Evrytania. According to information from the Fire Service, the Operations Centre received the call at around 18:00 and mobilisation was immediate. Twenty-five firefighters are operating at the site with two ground teams of the 4th Special Forest Operations Unit and three vehicles, while two aircraft and one helicopter are assisting from the air. The picture described here is the one at the time of publication: this is a developing incident, the firefighting operation is fully under way and the size of the forces may change depending on how the fire front behaves.

The choice to deploy aerial means from the first hour, despite the relatively limited ground force, is directly related to the terrain of Agrafa. It is one of the most inaccessible mountain areas of mainland Greece, with steep slopes, deep ravines and a limited road network, where fire engines need a great deal of time to reach the front and often cannot get there at all. In these conditions, water drops from the air act as a means of containment until the ground forces are deployed, while the special forest unit’s ground teams take on the cutting of firebreaks and the extinguishing of outbreaks at points a vehicle cannot reach. The same geography, however, also limits the time available for aerial operations, as the aircraft do not operate after sunset.

The Fire Service notes that on the previous day there had been rainfall in the area accompanied by lightning activity. That observation is recorded as a possible cause, but it has not been confirmed and the question will be settled by the investigation that follows every forest fire. So-called dry lightning, that is lightning that occurs with little or no rain reaching the ground, is a recognised cause of forest fires in mountainous Greece in August, when the vegetation has lost much of its moisture. A characteristic of it is that a fire can smoulder for hours or even for a whole day in a trunk or in leaf litter before becoming visible, which explains the time gap between a storm and a fire.

For the communities of Agrafa what is at stake is not only the forest. The mountain massif supports livestock farming, beekeeping and a small but steady mountain tourism, activities that depend on the integrity of the forest and recover very slowly after a fire. The next critical points are the containment of the front before nightfall, the guarding of the area to prevent flare-ups and the recording of the burned area, details usually announced the following day. The incident is part of a summer of constant mobilisations for fires in forest areas across the country and of increased pressure on aerial means, while the effects on mountain ecosystems remain among the most critical open questions for the environment.