![I did the obvious thing: I saved human lives [Greek audio]](https://vog.ert.gr/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/istorima_ertecho-400x400.jpg)
The tragic hours of the deadly forest fires in Mati in July 2018, experienced up close by a paramedic who threw himself into the flames from the very first moment. Manos Tsaliagkos from Rafina Civil Protection Service describes the battle with fire, the psychological effect and his permanent fears for a similar incident.
Interviewee: Manos Tsaliagkos Field Researcher: Odysseas Grammatikakis Podcast Creation: Haris Pagonidou Sound Recording: Dimitris Paleogiannis Sound Editing: Spyros Lyberopoulos, Dimitris Papadakis Photos: Isidora Harbila
Istorima is the largest project for recording and preserving oral histories of Greece. More than 1,000 young researchers find narrators listen, collect and preserve stories of people from all over Greece: Stories of their hometowns, stories of love, stories that changed Greece or defined it, modern or old stories. Stories that are not recorded in the history books and that could easily be lost in time. It was created by the journalist Sofia Papaioannou and the historian Katherine Fleming and is implemented with a founding grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), as part of its initiative to Restart and Empower Youth (see more on www.snf.org). More than 20,000 stories are gradually being published in full on www.archive.istorima.org. Excerpts of the stories are published in the form of podcasts, videos, or written stories on www.istorima.org.