Fire - Give us a Break

We drove out to the village yesterday. Those friends who have spent time with us in the country know that we live in front of and beside the forest.  We arrived yesterday to find that we now live a bit further away from the pines.  It was a shock at first to see a wide bulldozed scar running around our garden wall and nearly all the pines next to us uprooted.  We hope it's a fire-break, not the start of a six-lane motorway. The earth looks raw now but in a few months it will  green up and we'll get used to it. Between 2006 and 2008, 70 fires started in our region and 1000s of hectares of pines and olive trees were lost along with the bee hives and wildlife that exist alongside them.  A few years ago we were on holiday during the big Mazı fire and watched the flames rage just one hill behind our house.  I shall be thanking the Forestry Commission for their work, it will allow me to sleep a bit sounder in the tinder dry months of July and August.

This was a narrow path through the trees

The trees came right up to this wall. They left just one lonely pine.

I'm sure the locals will be along to make use of these tree roots

Forestry workers' ponies