The Ministry of Environment and Energy, in collaboration with the Green Fund, will immediately implement an additional financial program of 30 million euros for actions regarding the State’s obligation to fire protection of settlements located within or in contact with the forest ecosystems of our country

This program concerns the immediate drawing up of the foreseen technical reports and the priority immediate implementation of these with the aim of creating perimeter zones 10 meters wide, and concerns settlements and residential concentrations within high forests in the areas of particularly high risk of forest fires.

However, for the fire protection period of 2024, only the preventive fire protection measures are applied to the properties in the scope with existing buildings, namely:

– Ensuring clean access to the property from combustible materials.

– Regular cleaning, which includes regular pruning and cleaning of trees and bushes from any existing dry, thinning of non-fire-resistant woody vegetation, cutting of branches that touch or are at a short distance from the external structural elements of the building, cleaning of the ground (pine needles) , mowing grasses.

– Regular control and maintenance of the irrigation system, cleaning of roofs and gutters from combustible materials.

– Transportation of materials that may be stored freely on the property, such as waste, firewood, fuel containers, paints, etc. in an enclosed space or fireproof cabinet.

– Compilation by the owner(s) of the property of the evacuation preparation plan, i.e. a checklist and actions that will increase the degree of preparedness in the event of a fire, which records the necessary actions before evacuating the building as well as the way users can escape from the property in a safe place.

– Planning of perimeter protection zones in settlements, i.e. the three levels of graded protection around a building, where there is a successive reduction of combustible materials as we approach it.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, after new questions submitted to the relevant Ministries for the implementation of the Regulation, a relevant, clarifying circular will follow in the next few days.