Greece boosts exclusive firefighting units to cope with its escalating heat danger
KRYO PIGADI, Greece — Skimming more than miles of hills blackened by wildfires west of Athens, Hearth Lt. Col. Ioannis Kolovos readies his elite fire crew crouched inside of a helicopter.
The 10-member team from the 1st Wildfire Unique Operation Unit bristles with instruments necessary to maintain back again fires: chainsaws, specialised rakes, climate gauges, personal computer tablets and earth-scorching drip torches to burn up wildfire obstacles into the hillside.
Greece’s fireplace year officially starts off May perhaps 1, but dozens of fires have already been place out more than the past month soon after temperatures commenced hitting 30 degrees Celsius (86 levels Fahrenheit) in late March — noticeably larger than preceding spikes recorded above the previous 10 years.
“It’s in fact already summertime for us,” Kolovos told The Related Push during a the latest schooling exercising. “The real truth is that the hearth time has began prematurely and has been prolonged around the last five decades.”
This 12 months, Greece is doubling the range of firefighters in specialized units to some 1,300, and adopting techniques from the United States to check out and outflank fires with airborne units scrambled to establish breaks in the predicted path of the flames.
Crew customers include things like forestry industry experts and firefighters with diverse competencies, lots of created in schooling with colleagues in France, Spain and the United States.
“We can placement ourselves in best spots that may possibly be complicated to reach by foot and carry out hearth suppression working with various specialised methods,” Firefighter Dimitris “Jim” Priftis reported even though aiding trainees in a location in close proximity to the funds ravaged by wildfires in summer 2023.
“Using water is no for a longer time our main weapon against fires, it’s our applications,” he said. “We are taking a much more scientific solution toward fires, measuring the humidity, the wind — it’s a additional planned system.”
Typically funded by the European Union, Greece has released a 2.1 billion euro ($2.3 billion) program to overhaul its disaster response functionality, buying new h2o-dropping aircraft, drones, hearth trucks, instruction facilities, and an artificial intelligence-driven sensor community to detect early signals of smoke and flooding.
But the new machines won’t start out arriving until finally 2025. Greek authorities are doubling down on education and new firefighting strategies, with a further challenging period predicted this year.
Fires burned an believed 1,750 sq. kilometers (675 sq. miles) final year, such as a blaze in northern Greece that was the worst fire at any time recorded in the European Union.
Windy and mountainous with really hard-to-get to islands, Greece faces a daunting once-a-year challenge in defending a number of urban settlements that overlap with wooded places at wildfire threat.
It’s also getting hotter: Last wintertime was the warmest due to the fact fashionable records commenced in 1960, in accordance to the National Observatory of Athens, which analyzed European Union satellite info. The 6 warmest Greek winters on file have occurred in the earlier ten years.
That is from the backdrop of new facts revealing that Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, its temperatures mounting at roughly two times the world-wide common.
Standing in the primary catastrophe reaction command middle in Athens, Vassilis Kikilias, the minister for climate disaster and civil safety, suggests authorities count on yearly disorders to worsen more.
“It will be a pretty tricky hearth season, a incredibly challenging summer,” Kikilias, a towering previous professional basketball player, informed the AP in an job interview. “We had a dry wintertime and slide temperatures long lasting right up until December. So we’re struggling with the climate crisis head on.”
All over the month of April, firefighters stepped up routines and education, making use of new amenities like the Fire Dragon, a 1.2 million euro ($1.3 million) trailer made use of to simulate the inside of a burning constructing. Hearth crews with significant protective gear and oxygen tanks use it to practice shut-quarter methods and rescues.
Near by, Hearth Services regulars and trainees crawl as a result of a mesh maze in darkness to apply operating in confined areas. Contributors in complete package first workout on treadmill climbers and other gym equipment, then crawl by means of the maze as strobe lights, smoke and loud noises are additional to disorient them.
“The firefighting maze assists firefighters in a dark atmosphere, in an unfamiliar location, in the presence of hearth, to enter the spot, investigate, quite possibly have out a rescue and discover a way out,” explained Fire Lt. Col. Vrasidas Grafakos, a coaching heart commander.
“It’s to practice them efficiently to be ready for building fires, for front-line activity.”
Retiree Chrysoula Renieri was among these who missing their properties in the 2023 fires that tore by way of forests on the island of Rhodes, in northeastern Greece, and areas west of Athens.
Renieri visited her gutted household previous 7 days. As she walked through the blackened rooms, she explained how her relatives felt helpless as the approaching fire minimize off electric power and the water supply in advance of the flames took around the property. “No one aided us and all the things burned. It’s all absent.”
She explained she hopes the Fire Service’s new tools and methods might make a difference to other people.
“I wish that would transpire, so lots of households could be saved,” she claimed. “We hope, simply because summer is coming once more and the torment will get started.”
___
Theodora Tongas in Loutraki, Greece, contributed.
Check out A lot more Newest Athletics Information Click Here– Newest Sports
Look at Extra Most recent News in Entire world Click Here– Most up-to-date Environment
KRYO PIGADI, Greece — Skimming more than miles of hills blackened by wildfires west of Athens, Hearth Lt. Col. Ioannis Kolovos readies his elite fire crew crouched inside of a helicopter.
The 10-member team from the 1st Wildfire Unique Operation Unit bristles with instruments necessary to maintain back again fires: chainsaws, specialised rakes, climate gauges, personal computer tablets and earth-scorching drip torches to burn up wildfire obstacles into the hillside.
Greece’s fireplace year officially starts off May perhaps 1, but dozens of fires have already been place out more than the past month soon after temperatures commenced hitting 30 degrees Celsius (86 levels Fahrenheit) in late March — noticeably larger than preceding spikes recorded above the previous 10 years.
“It’s in fact already summertime for us,” Kolovos told The Related Push during a the latest schooling exercising. “The real truth is that the hearth time has began prematurely and has been prolonged around the last five decades.”
This 12 months, Greece is doubling the range of firefighters in specialized units to some 1,300, and adopting techniques from the United States to check out and outflank fires with airborne units scrambled to establish breaks in the predicted path of the flames.
Crew customers include things like forestry industry experts and firefighters with diverse competencies, lots of created in schooling with colleagues in France, Spain and the United States.
“We can placement ourselves in best spots that may possibly be complicated to reach by foot and carry out hearth suppression working with various specialised methods,” Firefighter Dimitris “Jim” Priftis reported even though aiding trainees in a location in close proximity to the funds ravaged by wildfires in summer 2023.
“Using water is no for a longer time our main weapon against fires, it’s our applications,” he said. “We are taking a much more scientific solution toward fires, measuring the humidity, the wind — it’s a additional planned system.”
Typically funded by the European Union, Greece has released a 2.1 billion euro ($2.3 billion) program to overhaul its disaster response functionality, buying new h2o-dropping aircraft, drones, hearth trucks, instruction facilities, and an artificial intelligence-driven sensor community to detect early signals of smoke and flooding.
But the new machines won’t start out arriving until finally 2025. Greek authorities are doubling down on education and new firefighting strategies, with a further challenging period predicted this year.
Fires burned an believed 1,750 sq. kilometers (675 sq. miles) final year, such as a blaze in northern Greece that was the worst fire at any time recorded in the European Union.
Windy and mountainous with really hard-to-get to islands, Greece faces a daunting once-a-year challenge in defending a number of urban settlements that overlap with wooded places at wildfire threat.
It’s also getting hotter: Last wintertime was the warmest due to the fact fashionable records commenced in 1960, in accordance to the National Observatory of Athens, which analyzed European Union satellite info. The 6 warmest Greek winters on file have occurred in the earlier ten years.
That is from the backdrop of new facts revealing that Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, its temperatures mounting at roughly two times the world-wide common.
Standing in the primary catastrophe reaction command middle in Athens, Vassilis Kikilias, the minister for climate disaster and civil safety, suggests authorities count on yearly disorders to worsen more.
“It will be a pretty tricky hearth season, a incredibly challenging summer,” Kikilias, a towering previous professional basketball player, informed the AP in an job interview. “We had a dry wintertime and slide temperatures long lasting right up until December. So we’re struggling with the climate crisis head on.”
All over the month of April, firefighters stepped up routines and education, making use of new amenities like the Fire Dragon, a 1.2 million euro ($1.3 million) trailer made use of to simulate the inside of a burning constructing. Hearth crews with significant protective gear and oxygen tanks use it to practice shut-quarter methods and rescues.
Near by, Hearth Services regulars and trainees crawl as a result of a mesh maze in darkness to apply operating in confined areas. Contributors in complete package first workout on treadmill climbers and other gym equipment, then crawl by means of the maze as strobe lights, smoke and loud noises are additional to disorient them.
“The firefighting maze assists firefighters in a dark atmosphere, in an unfamiliar location, in the presence of hearth, to enter the spot, investigate, quite possibly have out a rescue and discover a way out,” explained Fire Lt. Col. Vrasidas Grafakos, a coaching heart commander.
“It’s to practice them efficiently to be ready for building fires, for front-line activity.”
Retiree Chrysoula Renieri was among these who missing their properties in the 2023 fires that tore by way of forests on the island of Rhodes, in northeastern Greece, and areas west of Athens.
Renieri visited her gutted household previous 7 days. As she walked through the blackened rooms, she explained how her relatives felt helpless as the approaching fire minimize off electric power and the water supply in advance of the flames took around the property. “No one aided us and all the things burned. It’s all absent.”
She explained she hopes the Fire Service’s new tools and methods might make a difference to other people.
“I wish that would transpire, so lots of households could be saved,” she claimed. “We hope, simply because summer is coming once more and the torment will get started.”
___
Theodora Tongas in Loutraki, Greece, contributed.
