Even on the second day, the helicopter could not extinguish the flames that have engulfed the forests in Vlora for more than 10 days, causing colossal damage. As it was seen that the situation was getting completely out of control and that the extinguishing of the flames was impossible to do by circumstantial means, the Ministry of Defense and the civil emergencies after great pressure from the media were finally set in motion.
The Civil Defense Committee has held a meeting where it discussed the situation created in recent days by fires in some areas of the country. Present at the online meeting from the office was also the Director of the Civil Protection Agency Haki Çako who appears after more than 11 days without any reaction to the fires and when the situation has no other way has decided to interrupt the holidays.
The Minister of Defense Niko Peleshi assessed the situation on the Karaburun peninsula as serious, where the hearth has reached dangerous proportions, also helped by the wind, which affects the spread of the flames. Yesterday from Orikumi Peleshi said that only Karaburuni was being kept under control while the other hearths were not serious.
The Minister of Defense said that the avoidance of touching the Pashaliman base has been successfully managed, while work is being done to extinguish the fire on Dukat Mountain, in order to prevent the flames from passing into Llogara Park. At a time when the whole region is involved in a difficult situation due to high temperatures, Defense Minister Peleshi said that this makes it difficult for Albania to receive assistance from its partners. But he has nevertheless sought help from neighboring countries.
“I am not going to prolong it because this morning I had a communication from the Pashaliman Base with the media about the situation throughout Albania, now that we are talking about the most serious hearth is that of Karaburun. We managed to avoid the advance of the fires towards the Pashaliman base, dozens of members of the Armed Forces worked there today together with the forces from the local government, but the last concern we discussed on the map together with the commander of the Support Force for Civil Protection and with other colleagues and with the Prefect is the concern of the fire on Dukat because we are still about two kilometers away from the park of Llogara but we want to avoid at all costs the spread of fire in this park. We are also considering the possibility of technical or intelligent methods to avoid the spread of fire, we have considered the increase of ground forces and tomorrow we will have a multiplication of the Armed Forces. We have discussed and made a decision, which I am saying now for the first time, to enable our structures and specifically the National Civil Protection Agency to use not only the financial resources and the forces of the dependent institutions but also financial resources additional to receive service if necessary from neighboring countries, from private operators, from all available capacities. The not very good news is that there is not a lot of capacity available from neighboring countries because they are involved in emergencies much more serious than ours, I mean Turkey, Greece, Italy, Croatia where today I spoke with the Minister of Defense of Croatia before two hours, I asked for seaplane support, they were not able to respond to us immediately but we are still in line to use them as soon as a capacity is released. We will use helicopters tomorrow during the day by operators other than the vehicles we have available and we hope that during the next day I believe there will be three helicopters in use until late afternoon but it is not that helicopters are the final solution. First, in the early hours of the morning, the commander with his troops at 4:00 in the morning will leave for the forest area above Dukat, will walk 4-5 hours where the hearth is and to see what methods are more suitable to be applied to avoid the spread of fire towards Llogara Park, which should not be allowed in any way “, said Peleshi.
Meanwhile, the Director of the Civil Protection Agency, Haki Çako, has decided to interrupt his vacation.
In the online meeting he called for maximizing inter-institutional cooperation in this situation. Çako informed that currently there are 3 effective fires in the country. He asked the police to bring to justice the persons, some of whom have been identified as perpetrators of the arson. Two fires, one in Vaun e Dejës and one in the village of Palokastër in the Gjirokastra region have been brought under control. While the fires in Fier, Ksamil, Mamurras and Përmet have been extinguished.
