After every wildfire, authorities inspect the scorched earth. Again, the heartbreak for what has been reduced to ashes is followed by despair in the face of an adverse restart from scratch.
More than 11,100 hectares of land, with generations of labor, animals, crops, infrastructure, firs, pines, bushes, and olive trees have been reduced to ashes, leaving behind charred landscapes and a burdened, toxic environment. Barely a week has passed since the great fire in Western Attica and the desperate cry after each disaster is no longer heard, not even as a faint echo: “We must not lose any more forests in Attica!” But we are losing them. In just a decade, we have lost almost half.
One cannot get accustomed to disaster, but it can be forgotten – and you think that life will start again as before. But no. Every fire takes away a piece of strength from the Athenian basin, from the mountains of Parnitha, Penteli, Hymettus, Aigaleo, Gerania, Kithaironas, as well as Thriasio, Mesogeia, Marathonas, Kalamos; from this magical ensemble of multicolored curves between two seas, which has been echoing for centuries under the Attic light. It takes away a piece of prosperity from an ocean of millions of souls. It weakens the character that its economy and history have given to this crowded melting pot, it consumes whatever healthy part was saved under the unquenchable effervescence of life.
