Filenews 23 May 2022 - by Andria Demetriou
35% of the fires that broke out in the last decade in Cyprus are due to the human factor. On average, there are 230 fires a year, which burn to ashes and decay 1800 hectares of forest and agricultural land. Of these, 100 are forest fires that burn 1500 hectares of woodland.
As the Director of the Department of Forests, Charalambos Alexandrou, mentioned at the beginning of the Forest Protection Week, one in three fires are intentional, that is, fires that are put on purpose, without this meaning that they are malicious. Last year, as he pointed out, things were even worse, since 310 fires broke out and it was the largest number of fires we have ever had, while intentional fires were at 46%, that is, one in two.
Fleet
Regarding the fleet of the Department of Forests, Mr. Alexandrou said that in 2021 the Department had at its disposal six pieces of primary firefighting equipment (two planes of the Department of Forests, two leased Spanish planes and two leased Russian planes) and the goal is to increase them to eight by 2022, with the addition of two more leased planes.
Today, he said, at our disposal we have a total of five primatespieces, four planes (two of the Department and two leased Spanish planes) and a National Guard helicopter, which is available as a primary for the first time this year.
Mr. Alexandrou stressed that next Monday, May 30, there will be a decision on the lease and arrival of two planes and the next few days for the other two helicopters.
The shortcomings
There are several needs of the Department of Forests. According to information from philenews, today the staff of the Department, with the last 23 recruitments that were made, but also the other 28 that will take place in the next period of time, will reach 285 people. What is noteworthy is that the staff in 2016 reached 284 people, which means that in 2022, the staff of the service is at the levels five years ago.
As the Director pointed out, the two most important plans are, on the one hand, the completion of the plan for the prevention of major catastrophic fires and the study of the layout of the ground forces, so that as a rule the maximum time of the intervention is 10 minutes and, on the other hand, the securing of the required number of forces so that there is effective suppression.
The needs of the Department of Forests are employees and hourly-paid personnel, firefighting vehicles, reinforcement of air firefighting and introduction of technology.
At the same time, according to Mr. Alexandrou, more than 40 actions have been implemented, the most important of which are:
- The study for vegetation management to reduce the risk of explosion and expansion of fires
- The revision of the "HEPHAESTUS" and "IKAROS" plans
- The modernization and improvement of the Standby System of employees
- The implementation of a system for the administration of forest firefighting operations
- The operation of the General Business Centre
- The operation of the air firefighting base in Mammari
- The signing of a memorandum of cooperation between the Department of Forests and the Fire Brigade
- The signing of a memorandum of cooperation with the Cyprus Institute for the use of manned aircraft.
Forest Protection Week
It should be noted that the week of May 23-29 has been designated as Forest Protection Week 2022, with the main aim of informing and raising awareness about the protection of our forests from fires.
