A Cigarette Butt Gets You Arrested, a Spark From a Cable Gets Filed as Bad Weather: Who Will Open the Maintenance File

When somebody drops a cigarette butt or burns stubble, the mechanism is familiar: a report, an arrest, a statement from the Interior Ministry, sometimes camera footage. This week two people were arrested over deliberately set fires in Bitola and Prilep.

And when a fire starts from a power line?

That is exactly the question opened by the fire near Ramni Gaber in Studenichani. According to initial information from the authorities, the blaze was caused by a spark from a cable on the distribution network. Not a cigarette butt. Not arson. A cable.

The asymmetry everyone notices

The difference in response is not even concealed. For a possible arson, both the police and the prosecution move. For a spark from the infrastructure of a powerful energy company, the case stands a real chance of being filed as bad weather while everyone goes home.

This is not a conspiracy theory - it is a question that now has a concrete demand attached. Levica issued a statement asking that every fire with indications of originating from the electricity distribution network be subject to a thorough technical and legal investigation: establishing the exact line, ownership, technical condition, the dates and records of the last inspections, reported faults and the interventions carried out.

Maintenance is not goodwill. It is an obligation we pay for

This is the part worth knowing regardless of which party says it. Network rules require the operator to have organised maintenance of the system, and for overhead lines they explicitly prescribe inspections, checks, testing and audits, as well as repairs and fault clearance.

And that - as the statement stresses - is billed to citizens. Maintaining the network is not a service somebody performs out of goodwill; it is a line item on the bill.

So cables are not left hanging: their condition must be monitored and risks removed before a spark becomes a fire. Especially in summer, when high temperatures affect the sag of overhead conductors, and when checking critical spans, clearances and the vegetation under the lines is basic prevention - not a luxury.

The efficiency we know and the one we do not

The statement contains one line that anyone who has ever received a payment notice will recognise: EVN, part of an Austrian energy group, shows high efficiency when a debt needs collecting, interest needs calculating or a customer needs disconnecting.

"It is only right that we see the same efficiency when their maintenance file needs opening," the demand reads.

And there is the whole point, with no party colour on it: the maintenance file exists. The inspection records either exist or they do not, and that is a verifiable fact, not an opinion. If the last audit of that line was carried out and documented, it can be established in a day. If it was not - that too can be established in a day.

So the question to the authorities is not political. Has that file been requested for the line near Ramni Gaber? If yes - what does it say? If not - why not?

Whoever bills for the network answers for the network. The rest is administering ashes.