Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Vassilis Kikilias, announced the hiring of 500 new firefighters and outlined the priorities for strengthening the Civil Protection over the next period.
In an interview with Sunday edition of newspaper to vima.gr, Minister Kikilias said “our first priority is the recruitment of more than 500 new firefighters who will strengthen our forces during wildfires.”
The next priorities he listed as:
– Restructuring the prevention and response policies mainly through the strengthening of fire protection zones in forest areas.
– Involvement of the two levels of local government through a modern organized model of prevention and response.
– Upgrading and organizing the participation of volunteers and voluntary organizations in prevention and tackling of fires.
Kikilias also said that “the climate crisis has dramatically changed the models for the development of a fire under difficult or extreme conditions.”
PS everyone in Greece is now wondering why the New Democracy government did nothing in this direction since summer 2019, when the country is plagued by wildfires each and every summer and there are de facto over 4,000 empty jobs place for firefighters.
So far, main policy of ND for the fires has been: “Evacuate!”
BTW: when a ND politician announces “measures” you never know when will they be implemented. Can these 500 be recruited before the fire season expires end of October? Hardly.
