"Another hellish and long night lies ahead for all of us staying on the ground," the director of Pelister National Park, Ivancho Toshevski, announced on Sunday evening. The sentence is not a metaphor - some of the people out there have gone almost 48 hours without sleep.

The plan for the night is precise down to the metre: action along the boundary between the National Forests and the National Park, running north to south, at an altitude between 1,050 and 1,150 metres, above the road connecting the Gjavato pass with the village of Podmochani. The aim is to use the lower night temperatures to finally suppress the most critical front.

In the morning the fire was contained. As the day warmed up, several hotspots flared again. That has been the rhythm of this fire for three days now.

Who is out there

Park crews are working with support from the volunteer association Arhangel, the fire unit of the Bitola power plant and the territorial unit from Resen. Bitola has sent territorial fire brigade crews, public utility machinery and private companies with heavy equipment. Bulldozers are cutting firebreaks.

The Army's air wing intervened with an Mi-8MT helicopter in the Makazi area, on the slopes of the park. A three-hour sortie, 14 firefighting buckets, a total of 28 tonnes of water dropped on active hotspots.

The head of the Protection and Rescue Directorate, Stojanche Angelov, called this the hardest and most complex of all fires currently burning in the country.

Information that travelled faster than the fire

During the day, several news portals carried a report that two firefighters had been injured. Angelov denied it flatly: "So far not a single firefighter has been injured. The report that appeared on some portals about two injured firefighters is not accurate - no injured firefighter, and no firefighter who inhaled smoke either."

At the same time, the park director had said earlier that two members of the units working on the ground were injured during the night and that their condition was stable.

Two institutions, two opposite statements, the same day. Not a catastrophe - but a measure of how thin the line is between the crews on the mountain and whoever speaks in their name while everything burns.

What does not burn, and does not change

The fire broke out in orchards near the Resen village of Makazi and spread towards the National Park. Every summer the same dynamic: it starts below, reaches the protected area, and then it is handled by people who are still out there after 48 hours.

Bitola mayor Toni Konjanovski is appealing for responsible behaviour in the forests. The appeal is correct and it will be correct next year too. The question is whether next summer Pelister's only line of defence will again be the same sleepless people, one army helicopter and two air tractors.