Twenty-three open-air fires in a single 24-hour stretch. Twenty put out by morning, two still active, one under control. That is the bookkeeping of one August day in Macedonia, published by the Crisis Management Centre as routine morning information.

And that is exactly the problem - that it's routine.

The most serious active fire is burning in the Makedonski Brod municipality, near the site of Vidus close to the village of Dragov Dol. Low vegetation, low-growth forest and shrubland are affected. The second active fire is in the Kumanovo neighbourhood of Sredorek, where rubbish is burning. The fire at the municipal landfill in Delcevo is under control.

Look at the list, that's where the story is

The evening before, the centre had logged 15 fires by 6pm - six active, two under control, seven extinguished. The map of those fires is close to a geographical survey of the country: Struga near Dolna Belica, Centar Zupa near Plarenik, Kicevo close to the Turkish cemeteries, Bitola near Bukri, Dolneni near Zitose. The extinguished ones - Novaci on the road in front of the Bitola power plant, Veles near Kulata, Bosilovo between Turnovo and Sekirnik, Stip near Lakavica, Gradsko beside "Zito Vardar", Negotino near the Krivolak military range, Aracinovo.

Notice what burns most often: low vegetation, stubble, shrubs, rubbish, landfills. These are not forest catastrophes falling out of the sky. These are fires that start at human level - a discarded cigarette, stubble set alight after the harvest, a landfill smouldering for weeks because nobody covered it.

The landfills are a story of their own

Among the active and controlled fires, landfills are a recurring motif. Kriva Palanka at the exit from town. The municipal landfill in Delcevo. Rubbish in Sredorek. When a municipal landfill catches fire in August, that isn't an accident - it is the predictable consequence of how waste is managed. Rubbish that sits in heaps for months, on parched ground, at temperatures above thirty degrees, at some point simply starts to burn.

The difference between a landfill fire and a forest fire is that the first has an exact address and an exact operator. So why is the picture the same every summer?

High temperatures, dried-out vegetation, the same scenario

The conditions are objective - high temperatures and dried-out vegetation, when even a small source of fire can spread fast across a large area. That is true and nobody argues otherwise. But the climate does not set a landfill alight, nor does it torch stubble beside a motorway.

Twenty-three fires in a day sounds alarming until you get used to the number. And we have got used to it. The centre issues a bulletin, the media relay it, and the next morning the number is similar. What is missing isn't information - we have precise information, down to the name of the village. What is missing is someone who will look at that list and ask why the same municipality appears on it every summer.