SYRIZA criticises government’s handling of wildfires: “Greece leads the EU in burned area per fire”

“According to official data, state expenditure on leasing aerial firefighting vehicles has tripled in the last five years, rising to €468 million for the period 2020-2024, compared to €114 million in the period 2015-2019. Yet, during this time, the area of land burned has also tripled, with 3,714,110 acres lost between 2020-2024, compared to 861,340 acres in the previous five years,” Kapnisakis noted.

He underscored Greece’s troubling distinction within the EU, where it now holds the “sad first place” in the ratio of burned area per fire. In 2023, each fire in Greece burned an average of 10,090 hectares, a stark contrast to Italy’s 780 hectares and France’s 410 hectares per fire. Additionally, 40% of the land burned in Greece in 2023 was within “Natura 2000” protected sites, with 706,400 hectares of the total 1.75 million hectares burned falling within these conservation areas.

Kapnisakis rejected the notion that this crisis could be attributed to mere coincidence or a uniquely severe impact of climate change in Greece. Instead, he attributed the devastation to the “criminal indifference” of the New Democracy (ND) government and what he described as the “complete incompetence” of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s administration.

He criticised the government’s “thoughtless waste of public money” that has not been accompanied by adequate investment in prevention, aerial firefighting capabilities, or the hiring of sufficient firefighters. “This combination,” he argued, “leads with mathematical precision to the geometric increase in burned areas, which cannot be concealed or mitigated by communication stunts or Mr. Mitsotakis’s repetitive, bombastic announcements.”

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