“Together with the Chief of Hellenic Army General Staff, the Commander of the Engineer and local Members of Parliament, Mr. Konstantinos Katsikis and the rest of them, we came here to visit the temporary premises of the Army which were deployed following a joint decision we made with the mayors in the fire hit area.
The Armed Forces are now operating at five levels. The first level is that we contribute to the work of the Fire Service, by participating in joint patrols in an effort to facilitate their work in searching the houses that have been damaged in seek of missing persons, and in recording the damages.
At the same time, we have also set temporary infrastructure, which is mobile cooking units, canteens, with which we can serve the personnel of the Armed Forces and Security Services, as well as the volunteer groups who operate in this area.
The Engineer units of the Armed Forces, which have been deployed and are still being deployed during the day are ready to contribute, in cooperation with the Ministry of the Environment, in recording the trees that will be cut and will be then most of these trees will be used as blocks to avoid another fire, or as flood control works, and we will probably help to open some streams which have been blocked by materials. Thus we will avoid any floods because according to the weather forecast; there will be some rains in the area. But they will be mostly used in flood control constructions which will be conducted by the Ministry of Infrastructure for us to get prepared for September.
The operation of the Armed Forces in the area is of great importance both for people’s sense of security as well. As we decided both during yesterday’s meeting in Prime Minister’s residence and in the Ministry of National Defence as well, we have made all our capabilities available to the mayors for their people: nursery assistants to enhance the possibility of creating nursery centres for the children in fire hit areas.
A temporary command unit has been established which helps us solve also problems related to the Armed Forces. As you know, we have already announced a ten-day leave of absence for people whose families live in the fire hit area. Yesterday, the Hellenic National Defence General Staff announced that career personnel and conscripts serving in Evros prefecture or on islands or everywhere else and their families live in the fire hit areas will be immediately reassigned. In parallel, we provide the possibility of a military conscription deferment for conscripts who live in this area.
It has not been necessary so far, but the deployed units will have the possibility to offer electricity generator units to the local government authorities. There has not been any such need in Rafina yet. As far as the Municipality of Marathon is concerned, we have informed the mayor who, as I think, should be here during our visit. He knew that we will come. We offer him also the possibility to electrify the fire pumps if the public electricity supplier cannot electrify them. However, we know that the electricity supplier will restore the network damages. We have also the possibility to provide water through water trucks deployed all over the area, as well as by heavy duty desalinators.
This is what we can do so far, after this devastating fire. As you are aware, yesterday we presented in details what was the contribution of the Armed Forces during the fires. I would like to say, at this point, that the Armed Forces are engaged in order to provide assistance and only if they are asked to. We started, before being asked. What the mayor said is important, that particularly within the military resort, after a personal decision of the Chief of Hellenic Army himself, who came here, we tore down the fence to allow people flee towards the sea and avoid the casualties we had in Mati. At the same time, the firefighting forces managed to stop the fire as soon as it reached the resort”.
