Parallel Lines
Greece faces a serious forest fire problem. The climate is typically Mediterranean with mild, rainy winters and warm, dry summers. The fire problem is more pronounced in the south part of the country, which is drier and hotter in the summer than the north part and which faces a strong north-east wind called meltemi. This wind blows in the Aegean Sea and the coasts around it during the summer months.
The capital of Greece is the historic city of Athens, which lies in Attica, a peninsula surrounded by the Aegean Sea to the east, the Saronic Gulf to the south and the Corinthian Gulf to the west. Athens has grown rapidly since the 1950s and currently has a population of more than 4 million. In the 1980s, many people built vacation houses along the coastline and in the forests to escape city congestion and summer heat. In the 1990s, people also started building expensive houses in these areas for year-round occupancy.
Olive groves and vineyards comprise a large part of Attica's agricultural areas. Natural vegetation includes scrub vegetation called phrygana. At elevations up to 800 meters, most of the forest area is covered by Aleppo pine forests that commonly have an evergreen, thick and tall shrub under-story. Some areas that historically had semi-deciduous oak forests have been gradually converted to pine forests, evergreen shrublands or have been occupied by agriculture or buildings.
Wildland fires are a common phenomenon in Attica. The vast majority of them are caused by human negligence or arson. In the last two decades, with the expansion of wildland-urban interface areas, these fires are becoming more destructive. Two such fires took place near the town of Rafina. They were practically simultaneous, parallel, in close proximity, and burned under nearly identical conditions, providing the opportunity for some interesting comparisons.
The town and port of Rafina is approximately 25 km east of Athens. This short distance makes it a good choice as a site for vacation homes. As a result, the area near the coastline and the hills became loosely organized, often poorly planned settlements. A significant number of houses were built illegally and with low building standards and inexpensive, often flammable materials. Two such settlements are Agia Triada and Agia Kiriaki.
In the late 1990s, the Attiki odos highway opened. It surrounds Athens and improves access to many parts of it. This encouraged many people to build permanent houses around Athens. Some of the settlements that developed, such as Neos Voutzas and Kallitechnoupoli (meaning “the city of artists”) consist of high quality 2- and 3-story houses built to offer comfortable living.
On July 28, 2005, at 10:40 a.m., a fire erupted in the heavily wooded residential area of Skoufeika, west of Rafina. It was a windy day. The fire danger prediction rating for the day in the area was at four in the 1-to-5 scale used in the country, a rating of five indicating red-flag alert. The northeast meltemi wind was very strong, blowing up to 45 km/h, with gusts reaching 60 km/h. Relative humidity remained around 30% for most of the day. The fire moved quickly through the interface of Skoufeika and then crossed, by short range spotting, the main road that leads to Rafina and its port. Following that, it ran uphill to the top of a hill range that runs from Rafina to the north of Spata, where the Athens international airport is.
Agia Triada and Agia Kiriaki were in its path and were hit around 12:30 and 1:30 p.m., respectively. Then the fire continued in the Aleppo pine forest along the hill top. It was controlled at about dusk, when it finished with the hills and came down to the plane and the agricultural fields that surround the hill range.
At 12:30 p.m., a second fire erupted near Neos Voutzas, 2.8 km northwest of the Skoufeika settlement, where the first fire had erupted. This second fire was not a spot fire of the first, but a fresh start that can most probably be attributed to arson.
The new fire moved in the same southwest direction as the first one developing a parallel burn pattern. Within minutes it evolved into a crown fire and rushed through Neos Voutzas. The fire's behavior was extreme at some points, especially as the fire burned in two fully forested draws in the settlement. Exiting the settlement, it entered an area where the vegetation consisted mainly of evergreen shrubs that had regenerated by resprouting after the two consecutive fires of Penteli mountain in 1995 and 1998. At that time it picked-up speed and moved to Kallitechnoupoli, the next interface settlement in its path, 1.8 km away. Once there, it burned through the settlement and continued for one more kilometer until it reached agricultural fields, where by dusk it too was controlled. This fire became wider than the first fire because it was not constricted by lack of forest fuels along the flanks, as that one did.
The firefighting effort was very strong because of the type of fire and its proximity to Athens. According to the statement issued by the Greek Fire Corps at 2 p.m. that day, 180 firefighters with 60 fire trucks and another 100 firefighters organized in hand-crews were engaged. They were aided on the ground by many trucks of the municipalities carrying water, and from the air by eight Canadair CL-415 and six heavy-duty helicopters (mainly Erickson Air-Crane and MI-26). The final statement, issued the next day, reported that the ground forces reached 240 firefighters with 80 firetrucks, 150 firefighters in hand-crews, 550 soldiers, 300 policemen and 31 police cars for regulation of traffic and evacuation operations. There were also 20 water tenders contributed by municipalities in the area. The aerial forces finally reached 12 Canadair CL-415 and CL-215s and six heavy-duty helicopters. Unfortunately, these forces were poorly coordinated, as proved by the final size and shape of the fires — practically all the forest vegetation in the path of the fire was destroyed.
The firefighting forces lost the opportunity to control the fire at a number of locations where the fire front was quite narrow, in spite of the huge aerial support. The turnaround time of the aerial support was very short, as the distance from the fire areas to the sea was less than three kilometers. Strong wind was hampering the work of the planes and helicopters because of the large waves it caused in the sea near Rafina. The majority of the fire trucks were involved in efforts to save individual houses. In doing so they did not support the aerial efforts by completing extinguishment of the fire after their drops and they allowed the fire front to proceed without coordinated attack.
The final burned area of the two fires reached approximately 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres). More than 160 homes and other structures suffered damages or were completely destroyed. Fortunately no one died in the fires. The most interesting information, however, has to do with the distribution of damages. The burned area of the first fire was smaller than that of the second fire due to the agricultural areas surrounding it. Furthermore, the second fire moved faster once it exited Neos Voutzas and entered the previously burned area that was mainly covered by shrubs and small regenerating pines with a significant cured grass component in the fuel bed.
Contrary to the distribution of burned area, the number of houses destroyed exceeded 150 in the three settlements (Skoufeika, Agia Triada, Agia Kiriaki) hit by the first fire, while only a few houses suffered serious damage in Neos Voutzas and Kallitechnoupoli. This sharp contrast can only be attributed to the clearly different quality of houses in the two fire areas. The settlements hit by the first fire included a significant percentage of poorly constructed houses, built with nonF-fire-resistant materials. External walls were made wholly or partially of burnable materials such wood and particle board or gypsum boards attached to metal frames. Roofs often were made with ceramic tiles, which are commonly used in Greece. However, the weathered wooden supports for many roofs and the use of tar paper as a cheap material for moisture insulation under the tiles were often the weak points that allowed ignition and destruction of the roofs and subsequently of the whole structure.
Another weak point of many homes is the use of plastic window shutters. These are deformed easily, even without direct flame contact, and often melt falling on the ground. On hot summer days, the glass window panes behind the shutters are left open to allow air circulation. When the shutters collapse due to the heat, burning embers enter the house freely and start the furnishings on fire. This occurred repeatedly during this fire.
The two fires in the area of Rafina present a rare example of two simultaneous fires spreading close to each other, in similar fuel and weather conditions, but hitting two sharply different sets of settlements. They offer the opportunity for direct comparisons and allow drawing conclusions about the importance of developing well-planned settlements and well-built homes when these are mixed or in contact with wildland vegetation.
The difference in the number of damaged houses between the settlements of Skoufeika, Agia Triada and Agia Kiriaki and the settlements of Neos Voutzas and Kallitechnoupoli is as sharp as the difference in the two sets of settlements. The former are inhabited by low- to middle-class people. Although there is a city plan with adequate street network, most of the houses are built legally. Also, little landscaping, if any, has been performed around the structures. Many flammable materials, ranging from wood for fireplaces to plastic furniture, can be found in the lots around the homes. The majority of lots are small (less than 0.1 hectare). There are, of course, some notable exceptions.
As there are adequate roads, firefighter access was not a problem. Most houses sustained some damage and many were totally destroyed. Some relatively better houses suffered serious damage in the upper floor only. The fire did not spread to the lower floor thanks to the non-flammable construction. The number of seriously damaged houses at some points exceeded 40%, which is uncommon in Greece. Factors that affected the degree of damage, other than their construction, include the position of the house on the slope and in relation to the roads, the vegetation around it, and the fuels in the adjacent plots. Where a plot was undeveloped and had many pine trees, the probability of damage to the houses downwind from it was sharply higher.
In Neos Voutzas and Kallitechnoupoli, the houses are built with high-quality materials. They have a steel-reinforced concrete frame, brick walls, double-pane windows with aluminum window and door frames, aluminum shutters, and ceramic-tile roofs. As a rule, these tiles are positioned for decorative and insulation purposes on a sloped, solid roof made of reinforced concrete. There is a settlement plan but the topography is rugged and the roads are winding and often quite steep.
At Neos Voutzas the houses are often built on the steep slopes of draws with tall Aleppo pine forest covering the non-built lots around them on the sides of the draws. In some cases the conditions are close to the textbook example of a box canyon. This would seemingly increase greatly the probability of these houses burning. However, it did not happen. Only five houses suffered serious damage at Neos Voutzas and a few more houses were destroyed at Kallitechnoupoli, where the slopes are less steep. Walls separating the lots from natural vegetation, landscaped gardens and non-flammable construction materials helped keep the damages low.
In regard to firefighting, the fires of Rafina illustrated many of the problems present in fighting a difficult fire in an interface area. In such cases, coordination is a very difficult task and can easily break-down organizations that are not fully disciplined and well-organized. The outbreak of the second fire certainly created confusion and reduced the chances for successfully handling the crisis.
The firefighting paradigm that has developed in Greece does not help in facing fires in the interface. Currently the system is based on massive intervention of aerial means. Practically all difficult fires are offered aerial support. The pilots are quite experienced and take the initiative to a large extent. Given the large numbers of aircraft and helicopters, avoiding mid-air collisions often becomes a serious concern. The ground forces do not attempt intervention during the water-bombing phase, due to safety reasons among others. Once the flames subside they deploy around the perimeter for final control and mop-up.
This paradigm has led to less-than-perfect command and coordination of the ground forces. For example, little is done for fire behavior prediction, perimeter prediction, identification of fire evolution potential, etc. There are no fuel maps. Even topographic maps are rarely used. Furthermore, there are little pen-and-paper or computer logistics that would allow efficient identification and tracking of who is involved in fire operations and how they are engaged. Without such command, however, in cases of difficult interface fires the situation easily gets out of control. Firefighters without specific orders and objectives easily get sidetracked into protecting individual homes without concern for the fire front. Opportunities for fire control, such as firebreaks, roads, agricultural fields are not identified, whereas if such information and ground mobilization was combined with the power of aerial means it could offer high probabilities for controlling difficult fires before they cause huge damages in interface areas.
The two fires of Rafina clearly demonstrated all these problems. The firefighting forces, involved in saving individual homes were not able to react in an organized way to stop the fire fronts even where there were obvious opportunities, availability of roads and heavy aerial support.
The conclusions that can be drawn from analyzing these two fires are quite obvious and similar to those drawn by other authors studying earlier well-known fires in WUI areas: The quality of house construction in WUI areas and the landscaping in the immediate vicinity of structures are the main factors determining the probability of a house surviving a fire. Furthermore, the house survival probability is greatly influenced by the existence of weak points in its construction.
The house survival rate at the Neos Voutzas settlement, with its high-quality brick and mortar houses that survived the intense fire behavior in the two box canyons, also offers a very good example to those homeowners investing substantial funds for good looking but highly vulnerable homes in interface areas in other countries. It is quite clear that in interface area development the priority should be on building houses that can withstand a forest fire. Vegetation treatment around the houses, although very important can be a second priority. Furthermore, it can be carried out a little later or gradually, whereas making significant changes to the structure of a house is much more difficult.
Dr. Gavriil Xanthopoulos is a member of the National Agricultural Research Foundation's Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems and Forest Products Technology in Athens. He also serves on the board of directors of the International Association of Wildland Fire.
| STATE-OWNED | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| AIRTANKERS & AMPHIBIAN WATERBOMBERS | Large | CL-215 | 14 |
| CL-415 | 10 | ||
| Small | PEZETEL M-18 DROMADER | 18 | |
| GRUMMAN | 3 | ||
| HELICOPTERS | BKK 117 | 3 | |
| EUROCOPTER SUPER PUMA | 1 | ||
| TOTAL | 49 | ||
| CONTRACTED | |||
| HELICOPTERS | MIL MI-26 | 4 | |
| ERICKSON S-64 AIRCRANE | 3 | ||
| MIL MI-8-MTV | 2 | ||
| KAMOV KA-32 | 3 | ||
| TOTAL | 12 | ||
