When firefighters investigated a deadly blaze near the Athens Riviera in August, they found a familiar culprit: a loose, poorly maintained power cable. Within hours, the fire had killed one person and scorched 4,000 acres near tourist beaches south of Athens.
According to data seen by Reuters, faulty power lines were the leading cause of major wildfires in Greece this summer. Out of 41 major blazes investigated, 15 were linked to the electricity network, burning 51,000 acres of land. That’s more than last year — and it reflects years of underinvestment in the grid during Greece’s 2009–2018 debt crisis.
“Many of us have raised the alarm for years about sparks from energy lines,” said Palaiologos Palaiologou, an assistant professor at the Agricultural University of Athens. “We can’t keep ignoring it.”
Power Company Under Pressure
The country’s power distributor, HEDNO, defends its record. It says it spends heavily on maintenance — €165 million in 2024, up from €122 million in 2019 — and is focusing on pruning vegetation and burying lines underground. The company notes that since 2012 it has been found guilty in only three wildfire-related cases, out of more than 120,000 fires.
Still, frustrations are rising. Local mayors, like Dimitris Papachristou whose towns were hit by the August fire, say they will sue HEDNO over repeated negligence.
A Costly Problem
The government admits that budget cuts during the debt crisis left the grid vulnerable. Deputy Energy Minister Nikos Tsafos recently told parliament that years of underinvestment created a “huge gap we now have to fill.”
Meanwhile, hotter and drier summers driven by climate change are making wildfires even harder to contain. For many Greeks, the combination of weak infrastructure and extreme weather has become a dangerous — and familiar — cycle.