The inauguration of the Fire Brigade Training Center in Nea Makri, donated by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) was carried out by the forerunner of the Republic, Ms. Katerina Sakellaropoulou in the presence of the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the leadership of the Fire Service and other officials.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis attended and spoke at the opening of the Fire Brigade Training Center in Nea Makri, which is a donation from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

The Prime Minister, on behalf of the Greek Government, thanked the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and personally Andreas Drakopoulos, for another important donation to the Greek State.

“The Stavros Niarchos Foundation has always supported the Fire Brigade. But after the catastrophic fire in Mati, he decided on a significant additional donation to support the Fire Department.

And indeed whenever we think of the best way to use such donations, our mind usually goes to infrastructure: to planes, to vehicles, to technological systems. We rarely think about people. And that is why I consider it so important that a large part of this additional donation of 25 million euros was directed precisely to the construction of a – as you can see – a state-of-the-art training center, so that our firefighters can have the most thorough and professional training, in order to carry out the difficult mission we have assigned to them,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, who noted that firefighters are dedicated to the protection of human life, property and the natural environment.

“But we who see things from the outside forget how difficult your job is. What dangers are you exposed to and how much self-sacrifice and self-abnegation does it really take to dive literally into the fire, as you do all the time, whether we are talking about urban fires, whether we are talking about forest fires, or whether we are talking, Mr. Minister, about the rescues that take place afterwards from devastating earthquakes or after catastrophic accidents, such as the one that shocked us all in Tempe,” he continued.

And he emphasized: “Therefore, it is necessary that you have the best education that the Greek State can offer you. And the Center that we are inaugurating today, I believe, fulfills this mission.

Our Government, from the first moment it assumed the responsibility of governing the country, set the overall upgrade of Civil Protection as a first priority. And I believe that we have made very important steps forward. But enough, Mr. Minister and Mr. Chief, still remains to be done.”

The Prime Minister referred to 112.

“We have now managed to have an early notification system, 112, but above all to have acquired an evacuation culture which, unfortunately, we did not have in the past”, he emphasized while talking about the modernization of the Fire Department’s equipment.

“But mainly, we have achieved something that in the past seemed quite difficult: the most satisfactory coordination between all the competent services – the Fire Brigade, the Armed Forces, the Police, the Local Government bodies, the volunteers – in order to be able to we deal more effectively mainly with forest fires, the ones that have occupied us and hurt us so much in recent years,” he pointed out.

He said that last year, even though we had more fires, we tested this new system for the first time and “I think we have every reason to be satisfied with the results.”

And he added: “Of course, every time we have a relatively good fire season the bar rises higher. And since the fire season will soon begin this year, increased vigilance, preparedness and, above all, preparation are required once again. This preparation, which I dare to say for the first time, is being done because in the past we did not invest enough in prevention and as a result we then run with suppression operations or spend much more resources in the recovery process.

Mr. Mitsotakis stated that all this proves that the attention we must pay to Civil Protection issues must be timeless. “And the legacy that is built on a state mechanism, which has the ability to intervene in a timely, direct and efficient manner, is a non-negotiable priority of the State. But first and foremost, and to close with this, as Mr. Drakopoulos also said, the focus must be on the human being. The men and women of the Fire Service, to whom we owe so much.

Mr. Chief, you should know that Greek society holds the Fire Brigade in very high regard. And I believe that this gives you also additional strength, additional courage to continue your mission, this time even better trained after the commencement of the work of this state-of-the-art Training Center which we are inaugurating today. Mr. Drakopoulos, once again, on behalf of the Greek State, a big thank you”, he added.

The new Fire Training Center (FTC), with a total area of ​​38 acres, includes 20 buildings with administrative and living areas, classrooms and practical training, as well as outdoor training structures.

In the outdoor area have been created, among other things, an earthquake training, research and rescue field, real fire simulators and a climbing-descending wall that simulates a building facade, which is used for specialized training in special rescue techniques, mountaineering events.

It is worth mentioning that the Fire Brigade Training Center (K.E.P.S.) is under the Fire Academy and is based in Nea Makri, Attica. In this, Schools will operate where the uniformed personnel of the Fire Brigade will be introduced for theoretical and practical certified training, education and further training in subjects related to the responsibilities of the Fire Brigade and the new developments in the fields of Civil Protection and crisis management.

The Schools will provide training especially in tunnels, pipelines, refineries, highways, airports and oil rigs. Indicatively, the Schools-Educational Programs may include items such as driving and handling official vehicles and machines, dealing with H.B.R.P. threats and technical accidents, mountain search and rescue, rapid water rescue, work at height using ropes in an industrial environment, airport fire safety, fire protection training, ship fires, forest fire management, road tunnel incident management and response and gas/liquid fires fuel.

In K.E.P.S. the military personnel of the Armed Forces, the personnel of the Coast Guard and the Hellenic Police, the special uniformed personnel of the Municipal Police, the personnel Fire Services of other countries, crafts, industries and all kinds of businesses, nursing and other institutions as well as citizens in matters of civil protection.