After three days of non-stop firefighting, the blaze in the village of Raec near Kavadarci has been fully extinguished. Mayor Mitko Jancev announced it on his Facebook profile, posting photographs of the firefighters and volunteers who spent days and nights in the field.

The list of services involved is as long as the fire itself: territorial fire units from Kavadarci and Negotino, the public utility "Komunalec" - Kavadarci, the Directorate for Protection and Rescue, the Crisis Management Centre, Kavadarci General Hospital, the "Bor" forestry enterprise, the Interior Ministry, the Army, the police, Border Police - South, volunteer fire associations, and the residents of Raec and Drenovo themselves.

Victory has a price, and it arrived immediately

While Jancev was handing out thanks, people in neighbouring Drenovo were left without water. The fires damaged the power transmission network, and the wells supplying the village cannot operate at full capacity without electricity, the utility "Komunalec" announced. The company provided a water tanker for non-drinking use.

So: three days of fire, then a village without water in the hottest days of the summer. That is the real bill for a fire that in the official reports ends with the single word "extinguished".

"Together we showed that when we are united we can handle even the biggest challenges," Jancev said. He is right. But the uniting always happens after the flames are already here, never before. Volunteers and residents of two villages putting out a fire with their own hands is magnificent - and at the same time it is an admission that the system on its own does not get there in time.

The fires near Raec are not an isolated case. On the same day there were 14 registered open-air fires across Macedonia. The question after every summer is the same: how many of these interventions will turn into investment in prevention, and how many will end up as one more thank-you note on Facebook?