Greek fire usually refers to the inflammatory concoction with which our Byzantine forefathers used to set alight enemy ships. True to our byzantine tradition, here in Greece we are avid conspiracy theorists, especially at election time, with anyone from foreign spies, to anarchists, to opposition elements, to domestic motorway developers being blamed. The sad truth is that the disaster (64 dead & counting - 2% of total land area burnt this summer so far) mostly in the southern Peloponnese peninsula, is simply due to a complex combination of extreme weather, chronic fire brigade understaffing & underfunding, political appointments at key fire brigade posts, side lining & decay of the forest service which used to be quite effective in prevention measures, inappropriate waste management policies at village level, electric power line routes (through forest) and lack of adequate maintenance to avoid short circuits, and, to a smaller degree, arson for a multitude of reasons. The current center-right government has been largely passive about environmental causes, perhaps too busy privatising and selling, but the equally lethargic local government is as much to blame as the central government. Environmental awareness is also low, but this *may* change if the administration and media properly explains the reasons for the fires - rather than engage in a witch-hunt. Not all is lost, the world heritage site of Olympia was successfully defended, while fires are a natural phenomenon in the mediterranean landscape. Pine forests burn easily thanks to resin and flying cones but also auto-regenerate easily (also thanks to the flying cones) so there is hope, especially as the rainy season (September) is near. International contributions in the form of fire-fighting aircraft has been forthcoming and was much needed even though Greece has one of the largest fire-fighting fleets. Interestingly there was one very affluent country that instead of aid, offered to lease the aircraft of one of its private companies ...