With winds of up to 4 Beaufort intensity, the operation to extinguish the large fire in the National Park of Dadia continues today.
After a nightmare night with the fire suddenly passing through a fire zone, threatening the Information Centre of the Management Unit of the National Park and just as suddenly changing course and spreading alongside the National Road at the Lyra-Lagynes junction, the firefighting forces experienced a nightmare night, according to the head of the Forestry Department of Soufli, Gianna Diagaki.
Today, at first light, 320 firefighters with 68 vehicles, 13 groups of hiking teams, two firefighting aircraft, four firefighting helicopters with the assistance of the General Staff of National Defence, the National Police, the Forestry Services of Evros, volunteer firefighters as well as water trucks and project machinery of local authorities are operating in the area.
Specifically for the participation of the Greek Police in the broader operational planning and active participation with manpower and resources in the response to the fire, 42 police officers and 21 vehicles of the Alexandroupolis Police Directorate are available and so far have made a preventive evacuation-removal of more than 400 citizens from their homes. The weather conditions remain the regulator of the course and evolution of the creeping fire as any change in the intensity and direction of the wind causes new reignitions with the main fire fronts to continue their destructive course in the National Park.
With the stakes of the fire in Dadia being the protection of lives and property, at the same time as the protection of the special biodiversity and wildlife of the National Park, «the great symbol of our natural environment that all of Europe is interested in», as the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Christos Stylianides, who has been in Dadia since yesterday as head of a governmental team, and will remain in the area today.
