» Selfish or what?

Greece, like many other hot countries, suffers the trauma of fires each summer, when there has been no rain for months and the countryside is like a tinderbox just waiting for a flame.

Our first local fire was last Saturday. It started mid afternoon on the hillside behind us and by evening it had really taken hold, lighting up different parts of the hillside as it alternately flared up and calmed down. We watched it for quite a while in the darkness, as did friends across on the opposite peninsula, who had a clear view through their binoculars.

How can people justify doing this deliberately?

The fire was still burning on Sunday morning, though as soon as it was light the planes and helicopters could finally drop masses of sea water onto it, changing the bright flames into dense smoke.

From a safe distance both the fire and the attempts to put it out are impressive, but behind these incidents there is often a very different set of feelings.

Again, like in some other countries these fires do not always start naturally. In fact it’s a way to get around regulations that some people are willing to use, despite the devastation it causes. In Greece, land can be refused building permission if it is deemed to be forest land (i.e. largely covered in non-cultivated trees and shrubs). If you own such land and want to build on it, fire is a good way to get round the obstacles. Or if you just want to clear your land at someone else’s expense.

The problem is that fire, once started is difficult to control. And although the Greeks are well aware of the dangers, they are not usually willing to give up any land to create fire breaks that would limit this danger. They simply must have that extra row of olive trees.  Maybe the fact that the Greek government gives compensation for olive trees and grape vines lost to fire doesn’t help the situation.

Put this all together and you have a recipe for disaster:

People who put their own selfish desires above human life and property.

People who don’t care about the emotional, physical and financial devastation they create in the lives of others.

People who don’t care that the countryside takes years to recover, and that the fear of fires could discourage tourists, thus affecting the economy.

People who seem unafraid that their actions might actually kill people, and who would never see themselves as murderers.

And the sad fact is that, often, the identity of these life wreckers is known – people are pretty confident they know who the local arsonist is – and this isn’t his first time either. The Greek government has announced that they are planning to crack down on the arsonists. They are putting more money into human resources to investigate suspicious fires.

But it’s unlikely that local people will come forward to name the guilty ones. Maybe they fear reprisals; maybe they feel they don’t quite have the proof they need; or maybe they just don’t want to get involved.

How did we ever get to live in a world where some people believe it is acceptable to damage the lives and livelihood of other people in their own greedy desire to get on?