A hundred metres. That is how close the fire got to the last houses in Bonce before it was stopped.

The village, in the Prilep area, is spread across several hills, with dozens of houses. Volunteer firefighters from Bitola and Kocani, alongside professional crews from Prilep and Kavadarci, worked through the night to hold the fire in front of the village line.

"If it hadn't been for them, the fire would certainly have entered the village and we would have had a terrible sight," said Stojance Angelov, director of the Crisis Management Centre.

The numbers from the past 24 hours

Over the past 24 hours, 31 open-air fires were registered across the country. By 07:30, crews had extinguished 23 of them. Eight remained active.

Near Paligrad, where the fire also came within about a hundred metres of the last houses, three tanker tractors from the Protection and Rescue Directorate have been deployed.

Active hotspots remain between Morane, Vrtekica and Ramni Gaber towards Paligrad, above Vrazale in the Studenicani and Zelenikovo areas, near Cvetovo towards the old road to Elovo, in Vidus, Dragov Dol and Lokvica in Makedonski Brod, near Tajmiste in the Kicevo area where a mature beech forest is burning, between Lomnica and Gjurgjeviste in Vrapciste, near Cerovo in Mavrovo and Rostusa, and in Zelino.

According to the Crisis Management Centre's afternoon update, a total of 13 open-air fires had been registered by 13:00 - ten active, two under control and one extinguished.

What comes next

"The situation remains alarming. High temperatures continue today and in the coming days. No rain is forecast in this period," Angelov warned.

That is the sentence carrying all the weight. Eight active hotspots in a country with no rain in the forecast is not a one-day news story - it is a condition that will last until the weather changes.

And it is worth noticing who is putting them out. In Bonce the village was saved by volunteers who came from Bitola and Kocani - people who travelled hundreds of kilometres for somebody else's village. That is a fine story about them. Less fine about the system that depends on it.