The fire that burned for three days at the foot of Pelister has been brought fully under control. Stojanče Angelov, head of the Protection and Rescue Directorate, called it "one of the greatest successes of this summer" - putting out a fire moving through pine forest.

But on the same day, from the same fire, two different versions arrived about whether anyone had been injured.

Two statements, one fire

Ivančo Toševski, director of the Pelister National Park, announced that during the night two members of the units working on the ground were injured and that their condition is stable. Angelov flatly denied those reports: "So far not a single firefighter has been injured. The report that appeared on some portals, that two firefighters were injured, is not true."

Both men are talking about the same night and the same crews. Both head institutions that took part in the firefighting. One of them was on the ground with his own people. This is not a detail - if somebody was hurt putting out a mountain fire, that person has a name and has the right to have their injury recorded accurately.

How it was fought

Overnight work was concentrated along the boundary between the national forests and the national park, at an altitude between 1,050 and 1,150 metres, in order to make use of the lower night-time temperatures. Crews from Pelister National Park, the Arhangel volunteer fire brigade, the fire unit of the Bitola power plant and the Resen fire service were deployed, supported by an army helicopter and air tractors.

"At one moment you have full control, but with the first change in weather conditions things change in that same moment," Toševski says. Some crew members went almost 48 hours without sleep.

The fire broke out from orchards on the land of the Resen village of Makazi and moved towards the national park.

The other seven

While attention was on Pelister, the Crisis Management Centre registered seven active open fires out of 17 recorded in total. Low forest is burning near Raduša and Kopanica in Saraj, low vegetation and trees above Nežilovo in Čaška, forest near Urvič in Bogovinje and between the villages of Selce, Puhče, Stepanci and Lakavica in the Štip area. Fires are also active near Barbarevo and Stinik in Novo Selo, near Dolna Belica, Višni and Oktisi in Struga, and by the data centre in Prilep.

Under control are the fires in Gostivar and Makedonski Brod, at the municipal landfill in Delčevo and above Paligrad in Zelenikovo.

Bitola's mayor, Toni Konjanovski, sent crews and heavy machinery and issued an appeal for responsible behaviour in the forests. The appeal is correct and it is free. What costs money is a night in which people work 48 hours without sleep because something caught fire in an orchard.