The organizations responsible for the functions of forest fire management are not the same in all countries. A variety of historical, political, social, environmental and financial reasons have resulted in a wide spectrum of forest fire management organization schemes. As fire problems, in the form of very bad fire seasons, are becoming all the time more pronounced and visible, there is often pressure for changes in the fire management structure in the affected countries, in one direction or another. Sometimes the demand for such changes is extreme, especially after major wildfire disasters. Obviously, this can lead to serious mistakes. In this paper the change in the organization of forest fire management that took place in 1998 in Greece is described in brief. The example is used to demonstrate the pitfalls and the problems and to document the need for objective criteria on how fire management should be organized in a country, given its own unique conditions.