He was ignorant of the risks. Handy with most tasks and chores, he often repaired things around his house and used the yard as a makeshift workshop. On June 7, the 61-year-old resident of the Saronic Gulf island of Salamina was in the yard cutting a metal pole with an angle grinder to fix a faulty awning. “It was a simple task; it took no more than a minute,” he recalls. The temperature in Salamina was 31 degrees Celsius, with 60% relative humidity – not a high-risk day for wildfires. But even so, all it took was one spark for disaster to strike.
That spark traveled more than 11 meters into a neighboring lot, starting a fire in the dry brush. The 61-year-old tried to put it out with a hose and stomped on the flames. He called for help. The fire service deployed 27 firefighters, nine vehicles and a team of specialized forest firefighters. Even a helicopter was dispatched to dump water onto the blaze, which caused 5,000 square meters of damage before it was brought under control. The man was arrested for starting the fire through negligence and slapped with a €4,021 fine. Criminal proceedings are also pending.
“I didn’t think it through, because I’ve been doing this kind of thing for years and never had a problem before. But I guess that this is how fires start, when we’re not being careful,” the man told Kathimerini, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I apologized to the fire service. I should have been in a secure, enclosed space. I’ll never do anything like that again in the summer.”
