PM Mitsotakis: This year we had to face 4,000 fires; the state can now respond faster with aid

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The Greek state has a framework of state aid “which is tried and which we want to see operate with speed,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during a meeting he chaired on Tuesday afternoon with Attica regional authorities and mayors whose cities were affected by fire.

“I believe we can do this because we have handled other cases of natural catastrophes with a lot more beneficiaries,” he said of aid to families and businesses that were affected by the fire that broke out on August 11. Mitsotakis was accompanied by several ministers at the meeting in the northern suburb of Penteli.

Mitsotakis also referred to repercussions of the fires, saying that the government is drafting a plan to prepare for flooding, and said that in 2024 nearly 4,000 fires broke out, with many of these located in the Attica Region. The one that broke out in Varnavas on August 11 “was unfortunately, the only fire that spread beyond control, despite the fact that here as well the right decisions were made, as proven in several other fires – the dogma of a very fast first attack,” he said.

The premier said that at the end of the fire season this summer, an overall review will take place in parliament about what went well and what not, and he also extolled the role of technology in managing the fires.

“Technology has helped us a lot. There is no relation any more in terms of the speed we see fires compared to what happened in the past,” he said. “And this, yes, needs a combination of drones, cameras, but we are already building a technological infrastructure that will allow us to locate fires very quickly and to naturally adopt the dogma of first attack much more aggressively than we have done.”

Plan to restore Attica

A ten-point plan for restoration of Attica from the recent fire was presented during the meeting chaired by Mitsotakis.

In outline, the plan includes the following:

• Cleaning of public spaces (parks, glades, streets, walkways) affected by the fire has already begun in the context of the Anti-nero program, under the emergency funding of the Interior Ministry to fire-afflicted municipalities.
• Citizens and business owners will be able to apply for emergency aid for damage at homes and professional spaces through a special platform that opened on Tuesday (August 20).
• The Environment & Energy Ministry will announce, by the end of August and in collaboration with municipalities, the details of a special program (“Greening my garden, greening Penteli”) for the immediate cleaning and restoring of private gardens that have been burned. This will happen under fast-track procedures and in collaboration with forestry services.
• The government has assigned to the Organization of Natural Environment and Climate Change (OFYPEKA, supervised by the Environment & Energy Ministry) the drafting and presentation by the end of September of a special plan for fire-prevention and restoration of forests and streams in Attica.
• At the same time, reforestations of 5,834 hectares (ha) in Attica are being contracted out by the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund with Recovery and Resilience Funding through the Anti-nero program.
• Comprehensive management studies on all the forests and mountains of Attica (with total surface area of 140,000 ha) are being implemented and will be presented in the coming weeks. The purpose is to designate forestry cooperatives as forest managers by the next fire-prevention season, in the framework of forest management reforms.
• Fire-prevention studies are being drafted for all of Greece, covering 4.2 million ha.
• For the first time, Local City Plans will be drafted in the context of the ‘K. Doxiadis’ reform and incorporate special provisions for the protection of residential zones lying adjacent to forests from the threats of climate crisis and fires.
• A total of more than 2.1 billion euros will be allocated to the upgrade of civil protection systems and infrastructure, and nearly 1 billion euros from national and EU funding to the protection and management of Greek forests.
• Ahead of the next fire-prevention period, the policy for cleaning plots of land will be upgraded and boosted by additional supervisory tools, with inspection and penalty possibilities.

Source: ΑΝΑ – MPA

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