In the past hours, 20 officers of the Department of Civil Protection left Maltafor Greece in order to help the authorities there in extinguishing fires that ravage the country.
In comments from Malta International Airport, before these officials left for Greece, the Minister for the Interior, Security, Reforms and Equality Byron Camilleri and the Director General of Protection Civilian Peter Paul Coleiro explained how this help will be given after a few months ago the same Department had sent 32 other officers to assist in the disaster left by the earthquake in Turkey.
Minister Byron Camilleri said that this is the first time that the Department is sending a contingent outside our country to provide firefighting assistance. He said that this could only happen because in recent years these officers have been properly trained and a strong investment has been made in the training of the workers themselves apart from the unprecedented investment made in recent years in the tools of the Department of Civil Protection. “Once again the Civil Protection, we are being in solidarity with another country, where this time we had a request from the Greek Government where we are making use of the European mechanism. These workers will be assisting in wild fires, where this team, apart from assisting, this experience will serve as training and experience for what we need in our country. We have also seen that as long as these workers are in Greece, in Malta we will have all the resources needed to continue assisting in any incident that may arise. We are making giant strides in Civil Protection where this Department is not only excelling in our country, but is also helping other countries,” said Minister Camilleri.
The Director General of Civil Protection, Peter Paul Coleiro, said that since the beginning of this year, in Greece, more than 5,200 fires have occurred in the countryside, and 1250 hectares of countryside have been destroyed. He continued how the European Union is aware of this crisis and thus, contrary to what used to happen before, where Europe responds with resources when the situation escapes from the hands of the emergency forces, a process has begun known as pre-positioning where teams of firefighters are on the scene and fight the fire immediately.
“In this case, we received a request for direct help from the Greek Civil Protection, due to the fact that the Maltese firefighters are from the same region, they can work in the heat of the Mediterranean summer, as well as they are used to putting out fires in the countryside that is very similar to that of Greece. We could not remain passive to this call, to this request. We got immediate support from the Ministry, and thus a team of twenty firefighters will go up for two weeks to work side by side with the Greek colleagues,” concluded Mr. Coleiro.
Meanwhile, these officers will be sent to Greece through the European Civil Protection mechanism and are expected to stay there until the end of July. In fact, the Department thought of a contingency in its operation in the absence of these officers, with 230 officers who will continue to operate normally in our country.
Photos: MHSR
