Kilkis: fire at Vaptistis under control

A fire broke out in a farm and woodland area at midday on Tuesday 18 August in the Vaptistis area of Kilkis prefecture. According to the Fire Service update, twenty firefighters with nine fire engines were at the scene and the fire was immediately brought under control. The operational wording has a specific meaning: a fire is described as under control when its spread has stopped and the perimeter has been enclosed, without this meaning that the firefighting effort has been completed. The forces stay at the scene for several hours afterwards, putting out remaining pockets and guarding the burnt area so that a flare-up does not undo the result.

The ratio of forces in this particular incident, nine vehicles for a fire that was in the end quickly contained, reflects the logic of massive initial intervention applied during the fire season. The Fire Service mobilises more resources from the outset than the size of the fire appears to require, because the cost of a delayed response in conditions of heatwave and wind is disproportionately greater. August accounts every year for the largest share of the year’s incidents, since vegetation has reached its lowest moisture level and temperatures remain high until late in the afternoon. That same period coincides with post-harvest farm work, a frequent cause of fires in stubble and crop residues.

For Kilkis, a prefecture whose economy rests largely on farming and livestock, farm and woodland fires are not only about the forest footprint. Even an area of a few stremmata that burns can mean the destruction of stored animal feed, damage to fencing, to irrigation networks or to farm machinery, as well as an interruption of work at a critical time of year. Residents of the settlements bordering cultivated and scrub land are also the first to alert the Fire Service, and the speed of that alert remains decisive for the outcome of every incident. The authorities did not announce whether any damage was caused to farm installations.

The causes of the fire had not become known by the afternoon of Tuesday 18 August, and no injuries were reported. In every incident of this kind, investigating the causes falls to the Fire Service’s investigative departments, which examine the point of origin and the conditions before reaching a conclusion as to negligence, a technical cause or intent. During the fire season restrictions apply to the use of fire in the countryside, with fines and criminal penalties for those who breach them, while local Civil Protection services issue a daily fire risk prediction map. More incidents in the Fire section and in the Environment section.