"Firefighters in Greece only extinguish from the air. The terrain is very difficult to access. We are currently reaping the fruits of the Cold War. The terrain was surrounded by mines, they have not been removed. And there are tourist sites nearby, how are they secured? All these issues must be resolved after the crisis is over. After that, there are many things to improve and to analyze".
This was stated by the former Deputy Minister of Agriculture Assoc. Georgi Kostov in "Day ON AIR".
In his words, prevention is much cheaper than fighting and recovering from disasters and fires.
"After 3-4 months, when the fire-dangerous season passes, the topic will most likely be forgotten and will be raised again next year at the same time. This lack of consistency in both the media presentation and the activities of the institutions is one of the reasons why we stumble over the same stone every year. Integrated management is one fire prevention and preparation and recovery. There is more or less integration in firefighting. However, in the case of prevention, there are commitments of almost all departments, and each department has its obligations for prevention. They have a budget there, but it is spent individually, there is no integration there," Prof. Kostov added to Bulgaria ON AIR.
According to him, improving prevention is impossible without involving the local community.
"For the last few fires, the perpetrators are known, but they have not even been arrested and no punishments have been imposed, no one has been convicted for this activity. This is terribly demotivating for any prevention and any effort. "It's not possible for someone to go throw their garbage in the forest for a whole year and then these glass bottles and others cause a fire and there is no responsibility for it," commented the guest.
Someone is not doing their job and there should be control, Prof. Kostov is categorical.
"Firefighters do not have enough rights to sanction failure to fulfill the commitments of individual departments. We see that the road is overgrown with dry grasses and we frown. The problem is that firefighters have some authority, but they can't be everywhere to exercise that control. It must be implemented by local authorities and by all of us. This year we have over 85,000 acres of burned forests, otherwise over 200,000 affected areas," he pointed out.