A cool wet front is finally approaching Greece, which should help to quench the fires that still smoulder in the southern Peloponnese peninsula and on the island of Euboea, the only ones left after hundreds ravaged Greece on three separate occasions this summer.

The statistics speaks for themselves. The Greek media reported the fires, which swept through Greece in the last three weeks of August, were the country’s worst for 150 years.

The death toll reached 64 and about 500 homes were destroyed. One historical village, ancient Olympia, barely escaped the same fate as befell the Alexandria library. More than 2500 sq km of forests were lost, which was more than half the 4500 sq km lost annually to fires in the Mediterranean, according to estimates from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The fires affected regions that accounted for 4.5 per cent of the country’s total output.

Preliminary estimates by the Greek government put the losses at 1.2 billion euro, equivalent to 0.6 per cent of Greece’s gross domestic product.

To help tackle the problems caused by the fires, the Greek government alone paid out 200 million euro in compensations. Compensation ranged between 3000 for a person who had lost their home to 10 000 euro for the relatives of someone who had died in the fire.

The European Development Bank promised a loan of 125 million for reconstruction. Private individuals donated 38 million euro to a disaster relief fund.

Twelve countries responded to the call for help, providing tens of water bombers, helicopters, hundreds of specialist fire fighters and millions in financial aid.

For its part, European Commission, which had been long attacked for its slow and inefficient tackling of natural disasters, sent its president Jose Manuel Barroso to visit the country and co-ordinate disaster handling efforts. Immediately thereafter, Brussels announced plans to urgently create a constant task force to handle natural disasters, acts of terrorism and industrial accidents occurring in any of the European Union states. It also said the emergency team would comprise of 11 modules, each specialising in individual types of accidents.

The EU also gave assurances it would accelerate the procedure of disaster relief allocation after criticism that the victims of disasters usually had to wait a year before they received any compensation. Among the most immediate measures would be simplified access to the EU’s structural funds, Solidarity Fund and financial resources of the Rural Development operational programme.

Despite the fires, many business sectors in Greece were unaffected. For example, the country was still expected to attract 2.5 million visitors this summer, the country’s state tourism agency said. The record numbers took into account all the journalists and disaster-drawn tourists flocking to the country.

Nevertheless, the damages were extensive. The very scale of the disaster gave rise to plenty of theories, including conspiracy ones, about the identity of potential arsonists – it has been alleged that many of the fires were started deliberately – their reasons and the implications. In the face of a lack of any other information, theories about internal politics, business interests, foreign secret services or mere vandalism had taken hold.

To start with, the devastating blazes occurred in the run-up to parliamentary elections, called six months in advance, and a theory linked the two events with an intent to dent the authority of the current ruling coalition. Indeed, prime minister Costas Karamanlis received a flood of criticism from the opposition and population over his impotence in tackling fires in June and July.

Karamanlis hoped to win a second term in office to reform an obsolete pension system and make amends for a related scandal that rattled his New Democracy (ND) party’s public approval ratings. He also planned to implement reforms in the education system with the intent of legalising private colleges and universities. Karamanlis hoped they would introduce more of the modern subjects such as finance, banking and IT.

Despite the swift draft of the “mini-Marshall plan”, a programme that comprised of 31 measures and aimed at clean up and reconstruction of the affected regions, the ND’s five per cent advantage over the strongest opposition party, the Georgius Papandreou-led pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement, dwindled to less than one in late August.

Karamanlis hoped to regain the lead with a series of populist measures, among which was a one-time compensation payment and a six-month VAT exemption for residents affected by the fires. There have been more than 3000 fires since June.

Karamanlis denied rumours that the September 16 elections would be postponed on the grounds of a constitution article, which postpones elections indefinitely whenever there is a situation endangering national security.

On the other hand, theories that Greece was the victim of a terrorist and/or organised crime plot, dubbed locally “asymmetric danger”, also surfaced.

The country’s prosecutor’s office found evidence of explosive devices in tens of fire beds. Foreign secret services, the gang of the Kosovo Albanian Danilo and even a Bulgarian were alleged to be among the perpetrators. The government even declared a one million euro award for anyone who helped catch those who had allegedly started the fires.

A number of Greek newspapers claimed property developers, with appetites for forested plots of land, had caused the tragedy. The newspapers said developers hoped to use the land for other purposes in the aftermath of the destruction of the forests. Others disagreed with those rumours and said local legislation meant the land would not be able to be used for a long period of time.

Yet more theories suggested people who were looking for excitement or part-time fire fighters, who had not been called on to extinguish previous blazes, were the potential arsonists.

With a lack of any solid evidence, there was an abundance of theories. Some even interpreted the plot scenario as an attempt to divert attention from other and more pressing problems within the country. The answer could well be a mix of all of the above and some of the fires may have even occurred naturally as the August heat waves, themselves, may have been a cause.

What was potentially more important was that the August fires in Greece showed that a disaster could be handled in an orchestrated and swift manner.

Events in August saw emergency teams, politicians, international financial institutions, non-profit organisations and private individuals uniting in solidarity to solve the problem.

Greek and foreign media said that support for Greece has been among the best organised to date. In view of the fact that Greece was not alone in its woes, with most of the Balkans smouldering under heat-started fires and Great Britain suffering from extensive floods, this was good news as it set a good precedent to be replicated in the future.