Fourteen fires in one day. That is the figure the Crisis Management Centre reported by 6pm - one still active, two brought under control, eleven extinguished. The fire near the village of Greshnica in the Makedonski Brod municipality, at the Stojanova Naselba site, is burning low vegetation, degraded forest and scrub.

Look at the list of locations and you will see something more than a weather forecast. Gorna Leshnica near Zhelino. The Gjonovichki bridge in Gostivar. Between Zrnovci and Leski. Logovardi near Bitola. Teke in Prilep. Zhitoshe in Dolneni. Between Slupchane and Vaksince. Talashmance in Kratovo. The town cemetery in Negotino. Drenovo near Kavadarci. And Skupi Street - in the Karposh municipality of Skopje.

Eleven municipalities in one day, from Polog to Ovche Pole. This is not a local incident, this is a condition.

What was actually burning

The Crisis Management Centre listed what burned: dry grass, stubble, scrub, low vegetation, illegal landfills, straw and assorted rubbish. A landfill in Delchevo. A dump. Waste.

Notice how many of these fires did not start in a forest, but in places where somebody threw something away or set it alight. An illegal landfill does not create itself. Stubble does not catch fire from sunlight - it is a practice, old and familiar, repeated every summer by someone because there is nobody to stop them.

The Centre's appeal is that citizens should be careful during high temperatures and should not burn waste or dry vegetation. The appeal is correct. The appeal is also this year's, and last year's, and the one from the year before. The question that comes with it every time is whether anyone is ever held responsible when the appeal is ignored, or whether we only ever count ourselves in extinguished fires.

The government declared a thirty-day state of crisis across the whole territory because of the elevated fire risk. That is an admission that the situation exceeds the routine. It is also an obligation - a state of crisis means resources, coordination and accountability, not just a headline.

Firefighters went out fourteen times in one day and put out eleven fires before they could spread. That is their part of the job, and they did it. The rest of it - the part that happens before the first flame licks up - belongs to somebody else, and it stays undone.