The day after the big fire that hit the southern part of Evros to the borders of the prefecture of Rodopi highlighted the wounds caused to the forest tissue near the coastal front, but also more widely to the productive core of the region.

The thousands of burnt olive trees in Makri, Dikella, Mesimvria and Plaka are the main problem. Some, fortunately few, livestock units were affected and completely destroyed. Useful installations in stables, machinery and tools for agricultural exploitation were given over to the flames. Fortunately, the fire did not affect the olive mill of Makri, or other processing units in the communities of the area, but only a few isolated and distant buildings from the villages.

The Agricultural Olive Cooperative of Makris Evrou has started the process of recording the damage of agricultural holdings in an area from Chili, to Dikellas, Mesimvria and Plaka, where the olive groves have suffered the greatest destruction in the southern part of the prefecture.

“We estimate that maybe around ninety thousand olive trees were destroyed,” the president of the agricultural olive cooperative of Makris, Demosthenes Hadjinikolou, tells APE BEE, estimating that this percentage exceeds 30% of the total olive cultivation in the region and adds:

“Of these olive trees, we will have to see in the spring, which ones will have the possibility to regenerate and which ones have completely burned down. The main tree cultivation is the olive, of course there are other trees, fruits, nuts, but in much smaller numbers.” .

The affected olive groves are located high on the slope, above Egnatia road, which the fire penetrated in some places, but the mobilization of firefighters and volunteers from the villages stopped it before it reached the communities.

Everyone deserves congratulations, especially the young people and the women,” says Mr. Hadjinikolou and continues: “Here a villager left his field with olives, his machinery inside, the platforms, the tractor, because he believed that the fire protection system would last and went to help other units. And when he came back, he found everything burned because the power went out and the pump system didn’t work…”.

The olive groves that burned in the area above Egnatia Street are located among a bushy area with holly trees, which was also completely incinerated. Corrals were also burned in this zone, but the majority of the livestock was moved before the fire arrived and saved.

Residents who lived through the fire describe it as a terrible phenomenon. The stories are indicative of the atmosphere that prevailed in the first hours:

“The fire was burning everything, they poured water and it didn’t stop. The electricity went out and then we didn’t have pumps to get water from the boreholes. The aerial and ground means were fighting there in Egnatia and around the settlements and its younger inhabitants of the village in their houses and in their fields trying to put out the blazes. Some who measured the wind told us that the fire was “running” at fifty-three kilometers an hour. It was as if it were raining fire. Fiery balls of straw and grass were flying in the distance three hundred meters and the holly trees were blazing immediately and then the trees were also on fire…”.

The ancient olive grove of Makri was saved

Fortunately, the efforts of the fire brigade and volunteers were successful in the ancient olive grove of Makri Alexandroupolis. This exceptional complex of olive trees located on the lower side of Egnatia was completely saved, while other olive groves and crops in the surrounding area were given over to the flames.

The historical importance of the olive grove, which numbers around 220,000 trees, is enormous. Its trees, the youngest of which are 500 years old, and the oldest of which are 2500 years old, are still productive.

Olive trees, of great age, are also found elsewhere in Greece, but the importance of the olive grove of Makris, above all others, lies in the fact that it is compact and uniform, almost throughout its area.

Numerous are the reports of travelers and historical persons about the existence of the evergreen olive grove, especially in the last centuries. But, also, tradition wants the army of M. Alexander to have rested there, in the shade of the ancient olive grove, during his campaign in the East. The symbolism of the olive grove even refers to the Homeric epics, since the cave located at the edge of the olive grove and overlooking the Thracian sea is believed to have been the residence of the mythical cyclops Polyphemus, whom Odysseus blinded with a burning olive pole…

Even today, the historic olive grove, under the care of the growers of the local cooperative, yields significant quantities of excellent oil every year. “Of course, they used to be irrigated, but they haven’t been irrigated for four years. Irrigation projects have been delayed, there is no network, so the production has decreased quite a bit,” says Mr. Hadjinikolau.

Olive oil from the Makris region of the Municipality of Alexandroupoli has been included in the official list of Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) products of the European Union since 2020.

It took a lot of preparation by the local authorities and agencies to achieve this, as laboratory analyzes were carried out over a long period of time, which highlighted the exceptional quality and uniqueness of the Makri olive variety.

The area of ​​Alexandroupoli also has another rare variety of olive with a white shade, the “asprolia”. But the few trees planted this year in the area, not three hundred, were completely destroyed.

“We need brave support and monetary and tax help to rebuild these olive groves” says the president of the Cooperative and adds: “Each dead tree must be uprooted and another new one put in. But not in the same place, no new tree grows in the burnt one soil. Within the next four years we will start to take 1-2% of the production. The damage is great. We also need a nursery to make new seedlings of this Makri olive, which is a designation of origin.”

It is undergrounded in the Egnatia part of the medium voltage network

Damage was also caused to infrastructure in the southern part of Evros. An important part of the electricity network around Chili, Dikella, Makri and Mesimvria was not spared from the fury of the fire. On both sides of Egnatia Street, where there was forest above the settlements, the broken pillars and fallen cables are still visible in the scorched earth.

From the first day the fires broke out, the DEDDIE crews made superhuman efforts to prevent an accident and to restore electricity to the settlements. Immediately after the fire was extinguished, the – although planned, but rushed due to the fire – work began on the undergrounding of a part of the medium voltage network between Makris and Dikelli.

DEDDIE workshops with excavators and trucks have started work and are carrying out the undergrounding of the electricity network on Egnatia street as well. To the right and left of the road, construction sites have been set up with aggregates, gravel and cement slabs to be used in the restorations.

Extensive destruction in the forest of Cirki

A picture of widespread destruction is displayed by the forest tissue in the thirty kilometers from the exit of Alexandroupoli to Kirki and Sykorrachis. Throughout the forest area, north of Alexandroupolis, from Avanda to Sykorrachis and Mesti to the prefecture of Rodopi, thousands of acres of forest have been incinerated. Plane trees, pines and oaks burned completely and others partially. The fire caused great damage to the forest wealth, in one of the most beautiful forests of the country.

“The Evros law never had big fires, look it up” says a resident of Kirki and continues: “We only had small fires, not like this, since I was a child. Suddenly, last year, “fire in Dadia” and this year again in Dadia and here. What happened is unbelievable. I was born here, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

The fires in this part of the prefecture arrived from the big fire of Dadia, through Melia. Despite the relatively long distance, the intensity of the winds was such that within a few hours the tongues of fire spread across the entire region, destroying large parts of the solid forest.

At first glance, it can be seen that the destruction here is perhaps even greater than in Dadia, since most of the vegetation was pine forest. However, this is the first impression. The extent of the damage remains to be ascertained precisely by the official measurements of experts in the coming days. Some parts of the forest were saved. Strange how, considering the intensity of the phenomenon. Possibly, due to the direction of the winds, which changed direction several times throughout the fire, again and again driving the fire to the already burnt areas.

The burned part of the forest alternates in several places with healthy stands of trees. Several trunks still have their juices and many trees still have green leaves untouched by the fire. In other places the fire went under the logs, crawled to the ground, leaving the trees intact. But trees whose trunks were burned, even if their branches and leaves were saved, are considered finished. They will not regrow and should be removed.

The settlements were spared with relatively few losses from the stormy advance of the fire. About the four houses in Avanda, three in Aetochori, the same picture in Sykorrachis, fifteen houses burned – some of them closed and others country houses – in Kirki. However, a few houses of permanent residents, which are located at the edge of the settlements, were also burned.

It is typical that the flames – as it happened in the forest – dragged through the communities in different directions, leaving intact houses, next to others that engulfed and completely destroyed.

The permanent population of the communities in the area is small and most of them have returned to their homes and occupations. The smell of burning, however, is still in the air. Inside the forest, the ash stirs with every breath of wind, creating eddies.

The new anxiety of the residents now is the change in the weather, which during the days the fires lasted was clear, with moderate to strong winds. A heavy downpour, they fear, could cause new problems. Settlements are located at lower points in the mountainous terrain, usually at the edges of the mountains. After the advance of the fire, the ability of the trees to hold the soil and the brought materials is limited.

What they are hoping for, after the strong blow they received from the fires, is a quick intervention by the state and local authorities, so that in the fall they can prevent and avoid other disasters from extreme flooding in their area.