Civil protection: forest fire-fighting summer campaign is underway
The national fleet will count on 31 aircraft during the peak season.
The summer forest fire campaign formally starts today. The recommendations of the President of the Council of Ministers - addressed to Regions, Autonomous Provinces and interested Ministries - are available on the website www.protezionecivile.gov.it.
The 2019 summer forest fire-fighting campaign, whilst being more challenging than the previous year, with an increase in the number of forest fires and wooded areas affected by fire, showed no particular critical points. The recommendations underline the need "for regional and state systems to maintain adequate planning and response capacity at different levels of responsibility. The President of the Council of Ministers recommends that the Regions and the Autonomous Provinces work through "specific actions of verification of their organizations in order to plan actions in the medium and long term so as to organize and prepare the system for the upcoming events, given the cyclical nature of the phenomenon".
The document fully recalls the specific operational recommendations published in the Official Gazette no. 135 of 27 May 2020 and sent to all the administrations involved in various ways in forest fire forecasting, prevention and active fight against forest fires, in order to further promote the synergistic action of the regional and state components and to punctually identify the priorities for action.
For the summer season 2020, the national fleet in the period of maximum commitment will be able to count on 31 aircrafts - of which 24 of the National Fire Brigade Corps (15 Canadair, 4 Erickson S64F helicopters and 5 others AB-412), 5 Armed Forces helicopters and 2 Carabinieri helicopters.
In the framework of the European project "RescEu-IT", two Canadairs located on Italian territory will be activated upon request of Brussels in one of the EU countries in critical situations, unless employed for national needs. The EU project ensures additional resources to support countries committed to responding to disasters of particular magnitude, also outside the European Union.
The deployment of the national fleet will be coordinated by the Unified Air Operations Centre (COAU) of the Civil Protection Department.