Twenty fires in a single day. Eight still burning at six in the evening, two contained, ten put out. That is the official tally from the Crisis Management Centre for 14 August - and it is a number that reads less like statistics than like a duty roster nobody gets a break from.

The night before was the worst of this summer. In Bogomila, Čaška, the fire reached the first houses. In Lozani, in Pelagonia, dry grass burned fifty metres from people's homes. Both villages were saved - but not thanks to any system that saw in advance that August would turn out exactly like this.

Who actually put the fire out

The answer is awkward for anyone who wants to put this in a press release. In Bogomila, Veles firefighters went in alongside the villagers. Around Bitola, twenty volunteer firefighters turned out on top of the professional crews. In Makedonski Brod, where the fire has been burning for days on ground nobody can reach, around thirty people were working - volunteers and professionals side by side.

Stojanče Angelov, the head of the Protection and Rescue Directorate, said he had requested help with four Pinzgauers because the fire line was "extremely long". That sentence is worth reading twice. The fire line is extremely long - and the number of vehicles you can ask for fits on the fingers of one hand.

Twenty fires, and the same list every year

Look at the municipalities in the report: Studeničani, Makedonski Brod, Veles, Jegunovce, Struga, Kruševo, Prilep, Čučer Sandevo. These are not exotic spots that suddenly started burning. These are the same slopes that burn every summer, with the same vegetation, the same wind, the same temperature. The only thing that changes from year to year is how many people happened to be available that night.

Angelov says the active fires are not threatening settlements or high-value forest. Fine. But "are not threatening" is not the same as "will not threaten" - that describes the moment, not the plan.

When the neighbours burn at the same time

Over the past day the fire was not only our problem. Croatia was fighting flames around Omiš, in Greece the fire reached Siviri, where there are Macedonian tourists in August. The Balkans burn in sync, and each country counts its own damage separately, along with its own luck that the wind turned in time.

One person was hospitalised with burns. That is the number left over from the hardest night - and it is a small number only if you are not that person.

The question still hanging is simpler than any crisis assessment: how many Augusts like this have to pass before somebody decides that volunteers with twenty pairs of hands are not a strategy, but an excuse for what isn't there?