Thirty-four open-air fires in a single 24-hour period. Three are still burning, seven are under control, the rest have been put out. That is the daily report from the Crisis Management Centre on the state of the country - in September, a month when the fire season is theoretically supposed to be winding down.

The active hotspots are between the villages of Burinec, Lokov, Selce and Elevci in the Struga municipality, then near the village of Belica in Makedonski Brod, at the Kajorec site towards the village of Breznica, and near the village of Brest in Čučer-Sandevo, at Ramno on Skopska Crna Gora. Three different municipalities, three different terrains, and the same scene in each: low forest vegetation burning all day long.

Brought under control were the fires in Makedonski Brod near the village of Benče, in Kičevo near Tajmište and above the village of Kneino, in Gostivar near the village of Pečkovo, in Novo Selo near Stinik, in Karpoš near Bardovci and in Saraj near Kopanca. The list is long and scattered across nearly half the country.

The director of the Protection and Rescue Directorate, Stojanče Angelov, warns that the danger of open-air fires remains elevated. The warning is accurate. But a warning puts out nothing - it is what the system does after something has already caught fire.

The question that comes back every summer and that nobody wants to ask out loud is this: how many of these thirty-odd fires a day started themselves, and how many did somebody start? The official statistics rarely break that number down at the outset. Only later, when the report arrives, do we learn how many cases ended in criminal charges.

Every summer Macedonia counts the hectares that burned; every autumn it counts the forests that are gone. Thirty-four fires in 24 hours is not an emergency on a report - it is a routine that has become acceptable. And that is exactly what is wrong with it.