Fire brigade in Greece
The fire brigades in Greece are predominantly organized as professional fire brigades on a national level . In addition, there are only a small number of volunteer fire brigades .
Equipment and organization
The nationally organized professional fire brigade is under the umbrella of the Greek civil defense . There are operational centers in the 13 regions of the country. The fire brigade has 12,500 posts, of which, according to criticism from residents and local politicians affected by the devastating forest fires in August 2007, only 8000 are occupied. The country currently has 220 fire stations. Even relatively small municipalities in Greece have professional fire services. Where this is not the case (e.g. rural areas and smaller villages as well as islands), there are often no organized fire brigades at all, and the residents are dependent on supraregional help. Greece has u. a. via fire-fighting aircraft (15 Canadair CL-215 and 8 CL-415GR ) and helicopters operated by the Greek Armed Forces.
Volunteer firefighter
In Greece there is no organized volunteer fire brigade like in many parts of the world. There are many independent initiatives, most of them in Attica and on the islands, which operate on a regional or municipal level. They have different standards and no uniform training. The individual organizations are subordinate to the Greek civil protection. However, almost all of them are only involved in fighting forest fires. This is mainly due to the statutes of the civil defense. There are no plans to finance these associations from public funds. The members of these groups mostly buy their equipment with their own money or are dependent on donations. Most of the vehicles used are retired vehicles from Germany or Austria which have either been bought or donated.
Even after the largest forest fire disaster in summer 2018 in the municipality of Marathon (Mati, Rafina , Neos Voutzas) with 100 dead and over 200, some seriously injured, the government is not working on setting up a nationwide volunteer organization. The criticism of the lack of legal basis and organization was again loud not least because of this catastrophe.
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- ↑ http://www.tagesspiegel.de/weltspiegel/Griechenland-Waldbraende;art1117,2366391
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ https://www.zdf.de/politik/auslandsjournal/die-sendung-vom-1-august-2018-100.html
