Chalkidiki: damage to nine buildings in Siviri

The inspection of the buildings hit by the fire of 13 August 2026 in Siviri, Chalkidiki, has been completed. According to the record by the Directorate for the Restoration of the Effects of Natural Disasters of Northern Greece, the damage concerns nine buildings in total: seven homes, of which six were classified yellow and one green, and two storerooms, one yellow and one green. At the same time, the submission of state aid applications by businesspeople who suffered damage has begun, a process that runs separately from the inspection of buildings. The figures concern the record of the structures and do not include an assessment of the burnt area or of agricultural losses.

The colour classification is not descriptive but administrative, and determines what may be done with each building. A green marking means the structure was judged fit for use, with damage that is superficial or limited. Yellow means temporarily unfit for use: the building is not demolished, but it cannot be lived in before the necessary repairs are made and it is re-inspected, while in some cases limited access is allowed. The red marking, which was not recorded here, applies to buildings unfit for use because of serious damage to the load-bearing structure. The classification is also the basis for the amounts of housing assistance and for the deadlines that run for owners.

For Siviri and for Kassandra more widely, the timing of the fire adds to the problem. The settlement is in one of the most heavily visited areas of Chalkidiki, where almost the whole of the local economy is concentrated in the summer months, and the recording of six yellow homes means the same number of households out of their houses for an unknown period. The affected businesspeople, for their part, are required to document the loss of equipment or goods in the middle of the peak season. The need to coordinate housing assistance, state aid to businesses and forest restoration all at once is why the services are being convened jointly. The completion of the inspection five days after the event is also the precondition for the relevant procedures to be activated, since every compensation request rests on the inspection team’s protocol and not on the owner’s declaration.

On Wednesday 19 August at 12:00 a meeting is scheduled at the Kassandra town hall chaired by the Deputy Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Kostas Katsafados, with the participation of the Municipality of Kassandra, the Region, the Forestry Service, the Fire Service and Civil Protection. The subject is the coordination of the next steps in the recovery, from anti-erosion and flood protection works in the burnt areas to the handling of compensation requests. No timetable has been announced for the re-inspection of the yellow buildings, nor any total compensation figure. More in the Fire section and in the Society section.