In the face of nature we are all too human

Even when presented with the video footage and satellite images, it is almost impossible to take in the scale and severity of the fires engulfing parts of Europe and North Africa. The orange skies can look more like the work of Photoshop than nature. It is no easier to describe the scenes on the ground. People fleeing affected areas, which include Rhodes, Lamia, Volos, Sicily and Algeria, repeatedly liken what they have witnessed to a movie apocalypse or, more vaguely, to ‘something out of a film’. The fires are beyond the sδcope of human comprehension.

In recent days, my phone has been pinging with increasingly frantic efforts to pinpoint the precise position of the fires on Corfu, where a friend keeps a villa. With many cables down, one has to be grateful for the existence of alternative technology, such as WhatsApp. One moment all was calm, reported my friend’s neighbour; the next, the air tasted of ash, then came the first sight of flames. The fires had reached the edge of the village and then miraculously paused. How strange it feels to be able to track their steady encroach, yet be entirely powerless to stop them

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