wild fires

AP photo

You’ve seen it on the news. Greece is ablaze. Fires are set in the countryside. The winds pick up. The flames find the villages, and people die. It happens every year. But this year, almost fifty people lost their lives in a day. There have been nearly three thousand fires since June. It’s sensational, for sure. A mother, her four children in arms, burned alive and buried in ash. The drama of wind. The intrigue of arson. Europe is rallying, sending reinforcements. Time is of the element. People are trapped, tourists among them. Others are being evacuated. Nuns.

It’s also sad.

It’s summer, and very hot. Imagine the air quality, and the cost to the environment generally --here in a dry country where “forests” are only so green to begin with. There are national elections in two weeks. There may be a political aspect to all this. I don’t vote here, but I love my adopted country. I hate to see it burn.