A contingent of Romanian soldiers will be in France, from July 1-31, as part of a pre-positioning program, organized by the General Directorate for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations – DG ECHO, in order to strengthen the resilience of the French authorities in fire risk management.

„During July 1-31, the Department for Emergency Situations within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, through the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, participates with a specialized national module for extinguishing forest fires in a program aimed at reducing the response time in the event of forest fires, streamlining the activity of preparing the intervention modules belonging to the member states, as well as improving the interoperability between the participating forces,” informs a press release from the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (IGSU).

The activation and operationalization of the specialized module for extinguishing forest fires is carried out for the execution of the specific missions of monitoring and extinguishing outbreaks on the territory of France, in the locations established by the French partners.

„The first contingent, which includes 40 firefighters and eight technical means, started moving on Friday, on the route Arad – Budapest – Maribor – Ljublijana – Padova – Piacenza – Nice – Montpelier – Sainte-Marie-la-Mer,” the cited source says.

The addition of intervention equipment and personnel will be carried out depending on the dynamics of the situations recorded in the field, at the request of the French authorities, through the European Civil Protection Mechanism.

The change of personnel will take place on July 16, with another 40 firefighters replacing the staff.

The assistance program is financed by the EU and was envisaged as a measure of support for French communities, after the fires registered during the past years.

Based on the pre-positioning pilot program organized by the European Directorate-General for Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) in 2022 and the availability declared by DG ECHO to support in 2024 the pre-positioning of specialized modules to extinguish forest fires in countries affected by summer fires in the past, the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (IGSU), in its capacity as the national contact point, received, on May 27, the request of the French authorities to pre-position modules specialized in extinguishing fires of the forest in July this year.

This request was sent to IGSU through the Emergency Response Coordination Center of the European Commission (ERCC), through CECIS.

AGERPRES