Omiš Residents Left Without Answers: “I Don’t Know Who to Turn to”

October the 29th, 2026 – Over two months after the catastrophic fire, Omiš residents are still trying to recover from the tragedy that claimed six lives and left behind around €100 million in damage. Behind the scorched earth, destroyed homes and business premises remain the still bewildered people who, in just a few hours, lost everything they had been building for years. Lucija Zderic reports for Index that while some of the injured are still fighting for their lives, and the cause of one of the worst fire tragedies in Croatia remains unknown, those who lost their homes and property in the fire are fighting their own battle to return to normal life. “i just don’t know who to turn to” Marina Ozretić is one of those who lost everything they had been building for years in the fire. She found temporary accommodation with relatives, and is still waiting for concrete answers about the reconstruction of her house. “The situation is the same today as it was after the fire. No one can tell me what I should do or who to turn to. I don’t know whether it’s the City, the state, the County or somebody else. I can contact the City, but when I do, they tell me they know nothing. I don’t know what the situation is with my case or what I should specifically do, and financially I am not in a position to rebuild the house myself,” says Marina Ozretić. Recalling the evening the fire broke out, she says she made the decision to flee herself, aware of the danger that threatened her. She believes that if she had not left the house in time, she herself would have become one of the victims of the firestorm. “If I hadn’t thought with my own head and if I hadn’t started running myself, I would probably have burned together with the house. If I had stayed ten minutes longer, I wouldn’t have survived,” Marina recalls. Besides the lost home, what weighs on her most is that even after two months she still doesn’t know how she will rebuild the house or whether she will receive help. “Maybe for them this is a short time, given that such a situation has never happened before, but for me it’s a lot. I need to see somewhere that something is moving so that I can have hope for a better tomorrow,” says Marina. “there’s been no progress” After the fire a large clean-up action was organised, volunteers stepped in to help, and neighbours joined forces to ease one another’s first days after the tragedy. But the initial wave of solidarity gradually subsided, the city’s capabilities proved limited, and state financial aid got stuck in bureaucracy. People were thus left relying on each other, but that help, as Goran Lović tells us, is no longer enough. “More than two months have passed since the fire, and we are currently in a very difficult situation. It’s not easy for people. They have been left without houses, their houses have been charred or burned down, and there is no financial aid. People are in shock and no longer know who to turn to. They have simply been driven to the wall. The state has not paid people any funds for reconstruction. At the beginning we started arranging fire-fighting paths and cleaning, but the works have decreased. We have come to a wall because we cannot saw on private land, and we cannot independently intervene on state land either. Property-legal relations are tangled, and we don’t have an appropriate legal framework that would enable cleaning and remediation,” says Goran Lović, owner of a beach bar that was hit by the fire in the Lokva Rogoznica area. He adds that in the remediation of the burned area more concrete help is missing from institutions that should play an important role in this, such as Croatian Waters, Croatian Roads and Croatian Forests. “The most important thing is how we will rebuild the area and how we will prevent this from happening again. When will Croatian Waters come and install hydrants? When will Croatian Roads clear the terrain so that trees don’t fall along the road? We have a problem how to bring life back to our area. These large state services have so many employees, and they are not able to send people who would come here and do the job. We have already been in grief for months. Not everything has even been cleaned yet, let alone that anything has been replanted. Everything that has been done so far is the result of the voluntary work of citizens. Time is passing, we are late, and in five months the new season begins,” says Lović. residents are demanding answers regarding the investigation and the failed early warning system Even 75 days after the fire in Omiš its cause is still not known. The police launched a criminal investigation and seized surveillance camera footage, among other things those handed over by Goran Lović, whose restaurant is located near the place where the fire broke out. Lović suspects that the fire was set, but the investigation has not yet been completed. The prolonged uncertainty among residents, he says, is causing growing unrest and anger because, according to the information reaching them, there is no visible progress in establishing responsibility. “Omiš has been a very sad city since then. People’s grief has not yet passed, and now they are already a little angry because nothing is happening in the process of finding the culprit for this event, at least nothing is being communicated about it to the people and the public,” believes Julija Hrstić. The non-activation of the SRUUK, a system worth around eight million euros, has raised numerous questions about why the population was not timely warned of the danger and whether some of the tragic consequences could have been prevented thereby. “We want answers as to why the SRUUK was not activated. That interests many people. The system was activated during the fire on Brač, and why not in Omiš? The largest number of people died and were injured in Mala Luka, which is actually distant from the place of Lokva Rogoznica where the fire started. If action had been taken as it should have been, the question is what would have happened. Everyone can grieve and ask themselves, but those people are no longer here.” the tragedy has claimed six lives so far The fire that initially broke out in the area of Lokva Rogoznica claimed six lives, and dozens of people were injured. Among the victims were retired Omiš firefighter Drago Lelas (79) and seasonal workers Dragana Antešević (34) and Katica Nikolić (58). The last victim died in the Split hospital, more than two months after the fire. As Hrstić says, the restoration of nature and homes will be a long and difficult process, but it will be hardest for those who will return to their houses in which their loved ones will no longer be. That is precisely why, she says, Omiš and the people who went through this tragedy must not be forgotten. “From one family three people died. A man lost his wife, father and mother. He is still recovering. How strong you have to be in the head to continue living for the sake of the children, I don’t even know myself. This is a tragedy that hit Omiš. Besides what burned, human lives were lost. For many families nothing will ever be the same again and that must not be forgotten and neglected.” For Omiš residents, the fire did not end on the day the flames themselves were finally extinguished. For some, it left totally destroyed homes, and for others losses that cannot be compensated. While reconstruction and answers about the causes of the tragedy are awaited, the question remains how much more time will pass before life begins to be rebuilt again in the burned area. The post Omiš Residents Left Without Answers: “I Don’t Know Who to Turn to” appeared first on Total Croatia .