Meeting under President Anastasiades, in order to confirm the readiness of all bodies ahead of the summer season for the prevention of fires, today at the Presidential Palace.
This is the annual meeting that "is organized at this time to express our readiness before the President of the Republic all the relevant agencies regarding the problem of fires," said Interior Minister Nikos Nouris, speaking on the issue yesterday.
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He noted that as every year everything that should have been done has been done. "All the agencies, the Forest Service, the Fire Service, the Ministry of Interior, the Civil Defense have all the programs fully developed," the Interior Minister added.
One of the issues to be discussed is, of course, the issue of aircraft. According to the Minister, during today's meeting it will be examined how the relevant agencies have made the necessary arrangements taking into account the difficulties that exist in renting aircraft, especially from Russia.
The issue was raised in an interview with the Cyprus Times on Sunday.
"Although the tenders for the rental of two planes and two fire-fighting helicopters were announced in time, they proved to be unsuccessful twice. Therefore, we have put in place "Plan B", which envisages tendering/negotiation with the entities that expressed interest in the above tenders but for whatever reason did not submit a bid. Through these procedures we estimate that four aircraft will be secured by the beginning of June, which will further strengthen the fleet of air firefighting assets, so that it will be possible to deal with extreme situations that may arise during the warmer months ahead," Mr. Kadis said.
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