Romanian firefighters abroad
This summer, the Romanian firefighters helped their European colleagues in the fight against wildfires.
Ştefan Stoica, 23.08.2023, 14:00
This summer, Romania has been faced with successive waves of excessive heat, but not with wildfires, although the risk of their occurrence existed. Under these circumstances, the Romanian firefighters were on duty in European Union states seriously affected by fires, following the request of these countries for international assistance. Greece is one of the states that asked for support in fighting the fire. The General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (IGSU) in Bucharest informed that the Romanian firefighters successfully completed, on Tuesday, the mission extinguishing the fire in Alexandroupolis and were sent to the Dadia area for another intervention. There, they are acting to extinguish a fire on a front of more than 3 km, the General Inspectorate announced. 52 Romanian rescuers were involved in locating and extinguishing the fire that occurred near a hospital in Alexandroupolis. All in all, 56 firefighters, with ten firefighting trucks, a first response and command vehicle and a bus left for Greece on Monday following the request for international assistance, in the context of the existing forest fires in this country.
The intention to provide support was announced on August 20 to the Emergency Response Coordination Center of the European Commission by Romanias Department for Emergency Situations through the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, in its capacity as national contact point. The Romanian firefighters are not on their first mission in Greece this summer. In the second part of July and the beginning of August, dozens of firefighters from Bucharest acted to extinguish the fires affecting mainland Greece and some islands. The Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu praised the rescuers for their selflessness, courage and effort. Romania and Europe are in solidarity with the Greek people, who are in need of support, and we hope that, together, we can bring things back to normal as soon as possible, the Romanian PM said at that time.
On the other hand, the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations announced that Romanian firefighters in the French island of Corsica were involved in extinguishing a forest fire that broke out near the town of Corte. It was the first mission of the Romanian firefighters in Corsica. In their mission, the Romanian firefighters intervened alongside the military and civilian fire-fighting crews of the host country. In order to carry out aerial reconnaissance missions and efficiently cover the entire affected area, 2 helicopters and 2 firefighting planes were assigned to the intervention. The General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations reminds that, on August 15, Romania sent to the island of Corsica a specialized module to extinguish forest fires, made up of 20 soldiers. (LS)
