Twenty open fires in twenty-four hours. Fifteen extinguished, two brought under control, three still burning as of the morning bulletin. And on the stretch between Makedonski Brod and Sopishte, a mixed forest belt burned and spread toward Jasen - the nature reserve.

The list of municipalities where crews were called out maps the problem better than any map could: Skopje, Bitola, Debar, Shtip, Karbinci, Vinica, Berovo, Kumanovo, Rankovce, Tetovo. That is very nearly the whole country, in one day, on 19 September - by which point the summer fire season should already be behind us.

What is burning is not random either. According to the Crisis Management Centre bulletin, near the village of Evla in the Resen area, it is piled-up waste and dry grass. In the Kumanovo village of Pchinja - waste and low vegetation. In Novo Selo - a landfill. Near Dobrejci in the Strumica area - stubble and crop residue. This is not an "open fire" in the sense of a natural disaster. This is an unmanaged landfill and burning stubble, both of them entirely within human control.

Jasen in the column again

The fire near the village of Belica, on the Makedonski Brod - Sopishte stretch, in the Kajorec locality, crossed into the Jasen zone. It was brought under control overnight but remains under watch - the wind can bring it back. A second fire near the village of Badilen in Novo Selo has the same status: out, but guarded.

By the afternoon of the same day the Crisis Management Centre had logged nine more new fires, five of them active - near Krusheani, between Podvis and Krivogashtani, near Novo Selo, near Dobrejci in the Strumica area and near Klepach near Prilep. So the number is not settling. It is replenishing itself.

What changes from one year to the next? The crews are the same, the call-outs are the same, the landfills that catch fire are in the same places. Every summer we are told how many fires were put out - a figure that sounds like success. Nobody publishes how many were set deliberately, how many started at an unmanaged municipal landfill, and how many municipalities faced anything more than a reprimand for it. Until that second table exists, twenty fires a day will stay normal rather than news.