Air Tractors: The Fire Department’s new weapon for fires (photos)

A new tool has been the spearhead of the Fire Brigade in aerial firefighting since this summer. These are the 15 firefighting aircraft Air Tractors (11 amphibious and 4 wheeled) with which the government during the planning of this year’s fire fighting season decided to strengthen the fleet of aerial vehicles.

So next to the legendary Canadair, the PZLs and helicopters, the residents of the areas facing the flames see the new aircraft which are flexible, quick to respond, with a long flight duration (up to 3.5 hours) and the ability to transport 3 tons of water, to carry out risky drops.

Due to their ability to fly for many hours, Air Tractors are used by the Fire Department in aerial patrols for surveillance and direct fire attack in the first year. This is what happened in his recent fire Porto Germenoubut also in others throughout the country and for this reason they are controlled very quickly, helping the work of the ground forces.

The fact that the Air Tractors can also transport retarding liquid, which is an important weapon in delaying the spread of fire, also works to reinforce their assistance in the intervention in the first year, which has already been recorded in dealing with this year’s fires.

Its design Ministry of Civil Protection and Crisis Management and the leadership of the Fire Department includes the dispersion of these aircraft throughout the country to cover all regional units. Thus, 6 Air Tractors are based in Tatoi, 3 in Rhodes, 2 in Volos, 2 in Andravida and 2 in Alexandroupoli. It is worth noting that these firefighting planes have low operating costs and low support needs.

The Prime Minister visited the 2 aircraft at the “Dimokritos” airport in Thrace at noon Kyriakos Mitsotakis after his tour of the Rhodopes and the inauguration of the IGB natural gas pipeline.

Mr. Mitsotakis who spoke with the Greek and foreign (Canadian) pilots, yesterday in his interview with SKAI he had characteristically emphasized “we did a very honest ‘x-ray’ of our weaknesses and drastically and fundamentally changed the mechanism both in the field of prevention and in the field of cooperation between the Fire and Forestry Services and in the part of the speed with which we procured more aerial means and to the issues of communication which also have their importance when managing such natural disasters. We still have a difficult summer ahead of us, but I have a clear conscience that we have done the best we could to shield the country, but in the face – I will emphasize – of natural phenomena which sometimes surpass countries that they are much richer and possibly better organized than us.”

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