Shit, wild fires now on Corfu

[biggreentree]

We're booked to fly there next weekend.

The world and its mother goes on holiday in July and August, surely changing that timetable would help things like no evacuations of massive crowds etc.

It won't stop the fires, but maybe it is time for schools in Europe to close in May/June for three weeks and in September for three weeks. Spread out the crowds. Traffic, flights, car hire, consumption are all crammed into an eight week period. I realise that changing the timetable will result in similar traffic abroad at a later or earlier time, but it might not be as punishingly hot as July and August.

Thinking outside the box a bit, not saying the above timetable is perfect, but something has to give.

No need for the hostility and aggression, I was just commenting on my feelings. I live in 'active' and just pick up threads that look interesting, I have no idea and no interest what actual section they are in

Absolutely this, the long summer holidays really need to be scrapped and the weeks put somewhere else in the year.

Fires need both a source of ignition (arson, dropped cigarette, broken glass... in Canada they are warning about parking cars on long grass!!) And a fuel... such as very dry vegetation. Added to wind providing more oxygen... you get big spreading fires.

Even in the UK it happens. And there have been evacuations because of them. Its just they don't make the news...

Historically the long summer holidays were so that factories would be able to fully shut down i.e. you can't close a production line for a week, it needs to be a month. Italy and France especially have almost the whole month of August off because its too hot to work. School holidays were timed to match the workers holidays once school became universal.

I dont know about other countries but in the UK, the long summer holidays were so that children could still help their families on farms with agricultural work and harvesting in particular

We have moved on from then.

Wales are discussing about changing the school holidays from 2024/2025 onwards. I hope it goes ahead.

See, I really don't think this is or has ever been true!!!

I think someone said it once and it became gospel. Harvest in the UK is September/Oct!!

We've already started harvesting in Hampshire. Local farms started last week so it's really not the case that it's Sept/Oct...

There was uproar when schooling became compulsory, particularly from the poor or people that made money out of the poor because a main source of labour was going to be not working, they were going to be at school

To soften the blow, the government of the day made it so that children were still available for a good section of the summer to support in agriculture and by the sounds of posts above, similarly in other countries in terms of factory workers, this wouldnt be a surprise

My dad was taken hop picking nearly every summer, bit of money for his parents and a 'holiday' of sorts but essentially it was all hands on deck.

The information about schooling aligning with factory shut downs and the harvest etc. is very interesting. But as @bellac11 says, we have moved on from that since children no longer work up chimneys anymore.

@CeeJay81 what is the proposal for changing the school hols in Wales?

Greece and the islands have always had wildfires. Always. The climate activists will very self righteously claim you're part of the problem for travelling there in the first place. They're wrong of course. They are worse than normal because its unseasonably windy.

Do you not think that unseasonable wind could be linked to climate change?

I've seen it happen with my own eyes and start a wildfire (it's terrifyingly quick), and had a firefighter explain it afterwards, it's a totally natural example of the fire triangle (fuel, heat and oxygen) - basically piled up dry matter (leaves, grass, cuttings, straw...) kind of macerates, in very high temperatures it heats and then all it takes is a gust of wind and you've got a fire. It can also happen if you leave garden trimmings in a closed plastic bin in full sunlight, which is potentially a recipe for disaster if it gets really hot and then you open it...

Exactly.

Or glass on the ground /nearby reflecting

Or something shiny

There were horrific wildfires in the Athens peninsula back in 2018. Eighty people died including the husband of an Irish woman. They were on honeymoon in the area having been married a few days before. How tragic.

So Rhodes is not new. I reckon the Athens blaze back then did not affect any Brits so it passed us by really. Whereas Rhodes is full of British visitors (moaning as usual about things outside anyone's control), and that's the difference today.

Greece fire death toll rises to 80: Irish bride Zoe Holohan injured and husband Brian O’Callaghan-Westropp missing as hunt for survivors continues | London Evening Standard | Evening Standard

The graph on Sky News tonight showed that the wildfires this year are covering a much greater area and a month earlier than usual - due to climate change.

Yes flights have contributed to climate change.

There will always be climate change deniers, but the majority understands the reality before their eyes.

No. Weather in general in that area is unpredictable and prone to sudden change. Always has and always will. Ask an elderly Greek person...

The climate activists try to claim the fires are caused by CC. Now you're suggesting it's the wind that's caused by CC. It seems that these fires are a very easy way for ill informed people to virtue signal. Where as those in the know will be aware this problem has existed long before it became fashionable to scream BECAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE!!!

Weather is not the same as climate.

Weather may be unpredictable.

The climate is changing.

The science is known. Denying reality doesn't change it.

I'm afraid they don't. They follow spoon-fed media rhetoric. Rather than listen to the empirical evidence of those who live there.

I should say that I'm not a climate change denier. I'm saying that these fires are not the result of it.

Nitpick all you want. You knew what I meant. I'm not a denier. But these fires are not the result of CC. They've been happening since long before it was fashionable to virtue signal about it.

Not on this scale.

we have fires every year now. There were the big peat fires in Russia, fires in Siberia, the ones in Australia, the recent ones in Canada. And many many more.

@Keykaty it's just discussions atm.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/wales-move-forward-proposal-end-27313678

The topic here is greek wildfires. Not climate change in general.

Greece absolutely have fires on a similar scale year in year out. The fire service there is very well set up due to this fact. It's just most people are only learning this since lots of holidaymakers have been affected and its splashed all over the front pages.

@CeeJay81 Thanks for info re Welsh school hols. I like the sound of this proposal -

• Five school terms of about seven to eight weeks. Four-week summer break instead of six weeks. Three-week winter break instead of two weeks. Two week breaks in October, February/March and May.

It certainly spreads it out better, but I suppose every option will have its supporters and detractors!