Most fires in Greece were started ‘by human hand’, government says
By Paul Homewood
From the Guardian:
Most of the 667 fires that have erupted across Greece in recent weeks were started “by human hand”, the country’s senior climate crisis official has said.
… most of the fires could have been prevented, the government claimed on Friday.
Vassilis Kikilias, the Greek minister of climate crisis and civil protection, told reporters: “During this time 667 fires erupted, that is more than 60 fires a day, almost all over the country. Unfortunately, the majority were ignited by human hand, either by criminal negligence or intent.
Kikilias said that, in certain places, blazes had broken out at numerous points in close proximity at the same time, suggesting the involvement of arsonists intent on spreading fires further.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Shocked!
I have been to Rhodes, all the Balearics, Turkey, Portugal, Spain, always in July/August (shipyard holidays in north east) with wife and kids over the last 40 years and it has always been very hot and dry, the brush and forests were tinder dry but few fires except Portugal about 6 years ago, Eucalyptus replacing cork trees was blamed.
To get to my point, If the brush and undergrowth are tinder dry at say 37C how is 40C going to make them any drier?
Likewise; Cephalonia, Milos, Sifnos, Lefkas, Samos – always in high summer. Cephalonia July 1987 – very hot, 40deg+, two weeks after very high Med wide temperatures, Athens had seen elderly people succumb sadly. Part of the island saw a forest fire but reality was it was not as big as this year, and was not by all locals accounts arson; 1st of the island beautiful and a lot of greenery notwithstanding. Biggest difference – no climate hysteria.
para 1:
Most fires in Greece were started ‘by human hand’, government says
Official blames arsonists for the majority of 667 blazes that have spread in the extreme weather
para 2:
As the Mediterranean country emerges from an unprecedented, 15-day period of heatwave-induced infernos, the scale of the destruction is finally being laid bare.
para 5:
He added: “The difference with other years were the weather conditions. Climate change, which yielded a historic and unprecedented heatwave, is here. There were very few days where the extreme weather was not combined with strong winds.”
Anyone spot a “non sequitur” here? Or is climate change making arsonists more active? Or maybe motivating committed climate alarmists to create more “evidence” that the hypothesis is real?
Anyone who has visited the Greek islands in summer knows that hot temperatures are invariably accompanied by…..winds – not surprising given the proximity of the sea.
You can’t argue that “our house is on fire” if you don’t set it on fire.
A few years ago, the Spanish government spotted a trend for retained firefighters to light fires in order to earn money extinguishing them. Another possibility in Greece?
Up to 1997 expendiutre on fire fighting in Greece reached a maximum expenditure of €40.3million. However in 1998 it more than doubled to €81.3 million. Was this a result of climate change? Nope responsibility for fighting forest fires was handed over to the Greek Fire service. Retained fire staff are sadly notorious for starting fires.
Click to access maheras_georgios.pdf
Greece still does not have a national property register so just as in 2007 and 2009, there is money to be made by burning scrub or forest to then put in foundations with a bit of bribery, and then in the regular property amnesties that occur at election time you are good to go.
Yes it is a bit like Italian weather reporting stations run by the agricultural division of their Environment Agency (not the official meterological service) recording high temperatures to get irrigation and crop protection grants and insurances/subsidies.
Fire-setters should receive a mandatory 15-20 years slammer, or ‘the deep six’.
The climate cultists would have us believe it’s a simple issue all about ‘carbon’. But, of course, it’s more complicated that that… https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/29/greece-rhodes-wildfires-residents-blame-tree-chopping-rules/
The BBC gave that game away some time back when they mentioned that the tourists like the trees on Rhodes – no surprise then to find that the authorities have changed laws to discourage cutting them back in the manner that had been developed to suppress fires over hundreds of years.
How did this get past the censors at the Grauniad? Good to see that at least one politician despite “climate” in his job title realises that these fires are arson.
‘the Greek minister of climate crisis and civil protection’ has blamed ‘climate change.’
Of course he did.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” — Upton Sinclair
Seems nothing was learned from 2008, but best to blame arsonists and the climate. https://www.reuters.com/article/greece-fires-ombudsman-idUSL511247220080725
it’s been true for many years that many wildfires everywhere are started by people, either accidentally or deliberately (arson). This has been increasing as the number of people visiting forests for recreation increases. Another reason is the lack of proper forest management. Climate change is not the reason.
So, not from back-radiation from CO2?
Clearly not from Climate Boiling (©UN) as boiling is wet.
It was, in scientific terms, a Swan Vestas event. I hope not by people invested in a currently popular dogma.