Civil Protection Department

Aib campaign 2011: the opening ceremony in Bari

Thirty four aircrafts spread over 16 bases in the national territory are the airplanes available to Coau - Unified Air Operations Centre - for the 2011 forest fire campaign, which started June 15 and ends September 30. The State fleet was presented at the ceremony to launch the campaign Aib 2011 at Karol Wojtyla airport in Bari. Franco Gabrielli Head of the Civil Protection Depatment opened the ceremony followed by Nichi Vendola Regional President of Puglia. Also present were the leaders of the armed forces and all goverment agencies involved in the campaign Aib, voluntary associations and the dipomatic representatives of countries with which Italy has cooperated in the fight against fires. A ground display was set up with State fleet and Puglia Regional vehicles and also showed the land resources of the various components and sructures used in the active struggle against fire.

At the ceremony the Head of the Departemnt awarded the Puglia region with a gold medal for commitment in regional civil protection during the earthquake in Italy 2009.

The Head of the Civil Protection concluded the event with a visit to the Civil Protection Regional headquarters and italian satellite station COSPAS - SARSAT- Bari's international satellite system - designed to assist search and rescue operations by quickly providing location data of accidents to to teams involved in Sar (search and Rescue). The Department of Civil Protection in collaboration with the Comando Generale of Coast Guards manages the Italian station.

The air fleet and its deployment. The coordination of the national territory of the State Fire fleet lieswith the Department of the Civil Protection via Coau. The aircrafts are fixed or rotary wing aircrafts, mostly owned by the Department oe specially hired, others are made availble by other working bodies of the National Service and temporarily employed by the department for the Aib campaign. This season the fleet consistes of 34 vehicles (12 canadiar air 4 helicopters S64 and 10 Fire Boss) 8 medium large helicopters have been added (AB412, AB212, AB205, CH47) provided by the Fire Brigade, Italian Army, Navy and National Coast Guards. In total the fleet has a capacity of about 130 thousand litres of water and fire extinguishing fluid.

The resources have been deployed on 16 different bases, so that they can reach any part of the national territory in 60/90 minutes from takeoff. The aircraft bases wereestablished on the basis of a number of elements.

• climate and weather forecasts
• susceptibility of the bulletin issued by the triggering fires CFC - Central Functions Centre
• historical statistics
• the availability of regional aircraft
• the availability of water sources

The aircrafts can also act outside national borders within the European Civil Protection Mechanism or on the basis of specific bilateral agreements with the intent of mutual support in terms of contrast to fires

The 2011 Aib campaign, operational guidelines and duration of the Summer campaign are established by the Presidente del Consiglio. This year it starts 15 June and ends 30 September a total of 108 days. In regaards to the campaign on May 13 the President of the Council sent operational guidelines setting up all the necessary steps to prevent and deal with forest fires and interface to all the Regions and Autonomous Provinces. It outlines duties, responsabilities and actions that the different administrations should take for an effective coordination of forces.

Aib 2010 campaign data. The recent years show a partial reduction of forest fire emergencies and interface due to two factors: increase in prevention at all levels and weather conditions which have aided fire prevention. The Summer of 2010 saw 4884 fires almost 600 less than 2009. The area affected by fire was 46 thousand hectares, compared with more than 73 thousand hectares in 2009. Aircraft assistance requested to Coau 927. State fleet missions 2607, a total of 5531 flight hours, 22,521 take offs and over 127 milion liters of extinguishing liquid.