On Tuesday afternoon, around 5 p.m., a column of thick black smoke rose over the grounds of the former "Zhelezara" steelworks in Skopje. It could be seen from several parts of the city and drifted all the way to Novo Lisiče. Twenty firefighters with nine vehicles were sent out. According to the Crisis Management Center, the fire broke out in a paint and varnish warehouse at 67 "Aleksandar Makedonski" Boulevard. The eco-activists of "Green Human City" say it was the administrative building of "Fakom", a steel construction company that is in bankruptcy.

The citizens' initiative is now demanding that the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office immediately open an investigation into environmental pollution, and that the State Environmental Inspectorate carry out an urgent extraordinary inspection. "There is no way huge black smoke should come out of an administrative building. What was being stored there?" the initiative asks. They want to know what burned and in what quantity, and they openly compare the smoke to the fumes from the burning of electronic waste in Trubarevo.

Paint and varnish in an industrial zone

The official line about a paint and varnish warehouse partly answers the question of why the smoke was black. But it opens others. Who was using the warehouse? Did it have fire protection and permits to store such substances? Had any inspector been there before the fire - or will one only show up now, after the smoke? So far, there are no answers to any of these questions.

"We demand full accountability from the owners, as well as promptness and transparency from the responsible inspectorates," says "Green Human City", pointing to Article 43 of the Constitution, which guarantees citizens the right to a healthy environment. The incident, they say, must not be swept under the rug without an institutional and criminal conclusion.

Skopje has already spent this summer breathing smoke from forest fires on Kitka, in Studeničani and Zelenikovo, and in early September from the huge fire that crossed over from Kosovo near Gračani. Those are fires that are hard to prevent. A paint warehouse in an industrial zone inside the city is something else entirely - it is a risk that can be checked in advance. The question is whether anyone ever checked it.