It comes as something of a shock to suddenly realise, as the people of Greece did so tragically this weekend, that even in this high-tech age when we can send a man to the Moon or shoot at bad guys from pilotless aircraft halfway around the world, there is essentially nothing that can be done to stop a wind-driven wildfire burning through dry timber or brush.

Big fires create their own weather, they behave unpredictably, they get so hot that just about anything is fuel. They are the proverbial force of nature, beyond the power of man to control. I've seen a fire like that heading for my neighbourhood (it ultimately passed to the south) and it's a frightening thing indeed.

That said, preventing death and destruction in wildfires (as opposed to stopping them) is an area where technology and proper management help quite a bit. Fires are an annual summer event here in the Rocky Mountain West, and we devote a lot of effort to covering them at NewWest.Net – and based on that experience it's hard to understand how the situation in Greece evolved in the way that it did.

Preventing fire catastrophe is, in the first instance, an information collection and dissemination issue. If the moisture content of forests or brush-covered hillsides is very low due to dry weather, and if hot and windy conditions are expected over a period of time, the stage is set for a potentially catastrophic event. Better data collection and improved computer modelling have in fact improved weather forecasting quite substantially in recent years, and thus the extremely dangerous conditions in Greece should have been well understood.

Further, the key to getting people out of the way of a fire is to know, with some precision, where the fire is and where it is going, and to know that early on. By the time you can see the fire from town it's way too late. Satellite images (Google Earth is a good start), infrared imaging and spotter planes can identify fire locations and movement early and accurately.

Then it's a question of getting information to people in harm’s way as quickly and efficiently as possible. The internet, of course, is great for this, and I would say immodestly that NewWest.Net has been a leader in showing the utility and effectiveness of internet-based news coverage of forest fires. I'm sure a lot of Greek villagers don't have internet access, but they do have TVs and radios, and the TV and radio reporters in turn certainly do have internet access. In a crisis, that's more than enough channels for getting the word out.

Granted, fires can blow up with remarkable speed, and people sometimes die in the American West too. I don't know what was communicated in Greece. Still, there sure seems to have been a huge breakdown in this regard. The images of people trying to defend their homes with garden hoses were appalling, and represent a failure of information. The only thing to do when physically confronted with a wind-driven wildfire is to get out of the way any way you can.

The apparent failure in the information chain also prevented the authorities from mobilising help in a timely fashion, and even as I write this, with at least 60 dead and numerous villages still under dire threat, the resources allocated to the emergency seem paltry and very late in coming.

According to this newspaper, as of Sunday, there were 1,000 firefighters backed by 425 soldiers and 16 water-dropping aircraft fighting blazes across half the country, and five more water-bombers and 60 more firefighters from France were to join the effort shortly.

If those figures are even close to being accurate, it's simply inexplicable. By comparison, here in the Missoula area alone, where fires are threatening homes and businesses but the worst is past and loss of life is very unlikely, there are 650 people working the "Black Cat Fire," 1,043 people on the "Jocko Lakes" fire, and another 604 battling the "Sawmill Complex." The aircraft move around the region a lot as needed (there are dozens of sizeable fires across the Northern Rockies) but last week I'd say that, between the three Missoula-area fires, there were probably 10 to 15 helicopters, two or three water-scooper planes, and three or four “slurry bombers" dropping fire retardant. True, it takes time to mobilise these resources, but still.

I'm sure there will be plenty of recriminations in Greece once the crisis has passed, but blaming the tragedy solely on arsonists and the weather just won't wash. Technology can't solve everything, but in this situation there was plenty that could have been done.

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Jonathan Weber is the founder and editor in chief of NewWest.Net, a regional news service focused on the Rocky Mountain West in the United States. He was previously the co-founder and editor in chief of the Industry Standard

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