Zagori: fire on woodland at Vovousa

A fire broke out on woodland at midday on Wednesday 19 August at the site of «Aftia» in the Local Community of Vovousa, in the Municipality of Zagori in the prefecture of Ioannina. According to an announcement by the Fire Service, reported by the Ioannina newspaper dete.gr, twelve firefighters operated at the spot with a ground unit team of the 5th Special Forest Operations Unit and two vehicles. A firefighting helicopter assisted in the battle with the flames from the air, carrying out water drops. The Ioannina Fire Service was mobilised immediately as soon as the fire was noticed, while the initial reports mentioned no injuries and no threat to an inhabited area.

The choice of an aerial resource from the outset for a fire with a relatively small ground force is explained by the terrain of the area. Vovousa lies at an altitude of more than a thousand metres, in the heart of the Pindos range, and is surrounded by dense forests of beech and black pine. Access for fire engines is via narrow mountain roads, which makes the ground operation time-consuming and dangerous. In such conditions, water drops from a helicopter allow the front to be held back until the ground units arrive, which then take on the cutting of firebreaks and the extinguishing of the seats of the fire. The ground units of the ΕΜΟΔΕ are specialised precisely for such conditions, since they can reach on foot points that a vehicle cannot.

The wider area of Zagori is among the most ecologically sensitive zones in the country. It belongs to the Northern Pindos National Park, the largest land park in Greece, and includes protected forests, the Vikos gorge and stretches of the Aoos river. The area’s forest mass is of great age and high biodiversity, while recovery after a fire is far slower than in the Mediterranean ecosystems of lower altitudes. At the same time, the economy of the mountain communities rests to a great extent on hiking tourism and livestock farming, activities that depend directly on the state of the forest.

At the time the announcement was made public the firefighting operation was still under way and neither the area burnt nor whether the front had been brought under control had been announced. What caused the fire has not become known, a question being investigated by the Fire Service’s investigation offices after the operations are completed. Other incidents have been recorded in Epirus recently, while fires on woodland have also broken out on woodland in Agrafa. The Fire Service remains at the second stage of operational readiness across the country. The Municipality of Zagori includes dozens of traditional settlements with a limited permanent population, and the protection of the forest wealth is a basic condition for their survival.