Fires have already drastically reshaped the Attica landscape. Since 2017, the region has lost 37 percent of its forests and grasslands. Of the four mountains that form land boundaries around Athens—Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Pentelicus to the northeast, Mount Aigaleo to the west, and Mount Hymettus to the east—all but Mount Hymettus have experienced large wildfires in the past few decades. It’s little wonder that Athenians are angry and want somebody to blame.
“There’s political outrage as well as a political debate all the time,” Michalis Diakakis, an assistant professor of geography and climatology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, told me by video call. “Every time a fire catches, the public is outraged. It’s sad that it becomes political, because most of the problem is scientific… It’s not so much a matter of political parties, rather of long-term policy. And when it becomes political, it becomes more difficult to solve.”
In 2023, as Parnitha burned, some Athenians interviewed by the New York Times seemed to suggest that the government was using climate change as a cop-out. “Every year, they say the same thing, ‘We’re doing what we can; it’s climate change,’” one person said.
As a climate journalist, I can sympathize with politicians like Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has said the wildfires that have ravaged the country show “the reality of climate change.” Obviously, climate change has played a role—as fire meteorologist Giannaros repeatedly pointed out, if the conditions are ripe for an extreme wildfire event, no amount of fuel management can stop it.
But climate change is not the only factor. The people of Greece clamor for solutions—as they have every right and reason to—and the firefighters and scientists I interviewed have lots of ideas for how to mitigate wildfires, and to improve prevention and suppression alike. They would just like to see more research, more data, and more funding to put their ideas to the test.