The fire in Volkovo started in a small ditch. The wind took the trees above it, then the dry meadow, then the house. The house burned down completely. One firefighter suffered burns to his arm. The power utility cut supply in the area. On the ground were the Skopje fire brigade, the Directorate for Protection and Rescue, and air support.

While waiting for the firefighters, residents tried to stop the fire themselves - with hoses, with shovels, with canisters of water. A digger turned up too. That is the scene before the state arrives: neighbours with buckets against wind and dry vegetation.

Then came the demand, and it is more interesting than the fire

Right after the intervention, residents launched an initiative on social media for something concrete: legal obligations and penalties for owners who do not maintain their fields and plots.

„Will you pass a law on unmaintained plots? We live surrounded by trees, overgrown land and wrecked vehicles. We are not even allowed to go in and clear it. Every year we say the same thing,” one resident wrote.

The problem, residents say, is not only in Volkovo. They point to Orman and the surrounding neighbourhoods, where grass on some plots reaches two metres. Two metres of dry grass, in August, next to houses.

The proposal that already exists as a solution

The sharpest comment did not ask for an appeal but for a mechanism: „Inspectors should issue fines, but if the owner does nothing, the municipality should mow the plot through its utility services and bill him for the cost. Last year the fire spread through exactly that kind of overgrown land.”

That is a model that works in plenty of European municipalities - do the work, then charge for it, instead of waiting for an owner living in another country to respond to a notice. It needs no new budget. It needs the will to carry it out.

Another resident put the same thing more briefly: „Like in Europe - fines. When it hits the wallet, then there will be responsibility.”

Every summer, the same sentence

What makes this story worth reading is not the fire - there are fires every summer and the crisis centre counts them in daily bulletins. What is worth noting is that residents are not asking for new aircraft, or for more firefighters. They are asking someone to cut the grass before it goes up, and for someone to pay if they don't.

It is the cheapest measure in the entire firefighting policy. And the only one that stays unimplemented every summer, while firefighters with burns on their arms put out its consequences.