In a political showdown over the management of fires is expected to evolve the debate of the political leaders in the Plenary Session of the Parliament, which is currently underway. In the past few days, the opposition as a whole has raised questions about the management of the fires and the reaction of the state apparatus. The opposition is under fire for the government's handling of the recent fires will answer the Parliament the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
«In a fiery attack that the country had not received for many years, we managed to avoid loss of life, although we lost Vasilis. But property was destroyed, fortunately not as much as the size of the fire would have led us to expect, but a very important piece of forest was destroyed. And that is the bitter cost of environmental change combined with a painful heatwave. It was not only Greece that was faced with devastating fires. It is certain that this summer has become much more difficult to manage, because the heatwave has turned all our forests into powder kegs,» the Prime Minister said initially.
Mr Mitsotakis referred to the upgrading Civil Protection, saying that very important things have happened. «The 112 that was my personal commitment after the 2018 tragedy was activated. 112 has proved its worth. The fire brigade was reinforced with staff, vehicles and air assets. In particular, 74 air assets, more than ever before. No one can doubt that the country had been prepared,» he said.
He stressed that the government has made provision for clean-ups in areas near forests. He stressed that in Hippocratic State there was an escape route with the flames reaching close to the settlement although they did not enter.
The prime minister claimed that it was very difficult to extinguish the fires and cited the fire in Vilia as an example. «But the reality is that we have been called upon to deal with fires with very different characteristics, in forests untended for decades, and the truth is that these fires when they escape the ability to intervene from the first infestation become very difficult to manage.» He argued that the Fire Service has been able to control the vast majority of fires since their inception.
«We were better prepared than other times, but this preparation was not enough to deal with the fires and the result is that we may have had less property destroyed than what some may have expected seeing the extent of the fires and this is something that forces us to look in detail at what went wrong and especially what we can do better from now on,» Mitsotakis said.
