72 hours, army helicopters and volunteers from half of Macedonia: the Pelister fire was set deliberately

Seventy-two hours. Three sleepless nights. Some crews stayed awake for more than 48 hours straight. That is what it took to bring under control the fire that had been climbing the Prespa side of Pelister since 29 August - and that is what it took to show how many people and how much equipment have to be gathered here to stop a national park from burning down.

The Pelister National Park said this was one of the most complex fires of the season anywhere in Macedonia. The forest the fire was moving through is dominated by black and white pine - a species that burns fast, hard and with very little room for negotiation. The difficult, inaccessible terrain and the unfavourable weather were the other half of the problem.

The list of what it took to get the fire under control is worth reading in full: units of the Pelister National Park, the territorial fire brigade from Bitola, the Resen fire brigade, machinery from Bitola municipality's public utilities, the Strežovo public enterprise, forces from the Protection and Rescue Directorate, the Arhangel and Kočani volunteer fire societies, helicopters from the army's air wing and air tractors from the directorate. Plus private businesses and volunteers who, according to the park, were engaged around the clock.

That is almost the entire available firefighting capacity of the state, pointed at one place. The park is open about where the real challenge lay: coordinating a large number of forces in a relatively small area, on inaccessible terrain, with ground and air operations running at the same time. Not the extinguishing - the coordinating.

"The impossible became possible because everyone was on the ground without a break," the National Park said, singling out the head of the Protection and Rescue Directorate, Stojanče Angelov, for coordinating the additional forces.

And then comes the sentence that changes the whole story: the fire is believed to have been set deliberately. Three days of mobilising army helicopters, air tractors, four fire brigades and volunteers from half the country - for something that most likely started with a human decision.

Pelister survived this year. What remains is the question no helicopter puts out: who set the fire, and whether anyone will answer for it - or whether this forest too will go into the statistics as one more blaze with an unknown beginning.