“After many years, since the time of the Olympic Games in Athens, a systematic and organized effort is being made through AEGIS, the largest procurement program in the history of the Civil Protection of the country, and in the next 17 months – the project- we will get weather stations for the whole country and in the next 19 months we will receive radar. The project is at the Auditing Conference for signature”, announced the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Vassilis Kikiliasin an interview he gave to ERT.

As he pointed out, the meteorological stations and the radar will significantly upgrade the part of prevention and early preparation for extreme weather events. “Our meteorologists – from EMY, the Observatory and private individuals – through the European and American weather forecast model, study the data and in a scientific way try to make predictions and inform us”, said the minister while pointing out that and today at 09.00 in the morning they called her Risk Assessment Committee for the local heavy rains and storms of this bad weather, in order “to see with our scientists who will have evaluated the latest data, if they recommend us to use the tools we have: that is, the information through the Civil Protection War Room, the mayors/deputy mayors of the Army, Police, etc. or the use of 112”.

In a question about “the credit the ministry received Civil Protection from the Commission for its quick implementation SHIELD“, the minister pointed out that within 11 months and with a lot of hard work, it was possible to auction AEGIS projects, amounting to 1.9 billion. euros, despite the difficulties of such a heavy, complex and cumbersome program, with three sources of funding – the Recovery Fund, the European Investment Bank and the NSRF. These projects include, among others, Canadair, helicopters, 1200 fire engines, 110 drones, sensors for forests and streams, infared cameras for forest fires, equipment for volunteers and firefighters, artificial intelligence, 13 regional civil protection centers, and .a. “The government and the prime minister have done everything they can in recent years for civil protection to go to another era, much ahead of what we had and used in the last decades,” he said characteristically.

Regarding the fire prevention period, he underlined that “in the most difficult fire-meteorological conditions of the last 40 years – as the president of the Observatory, Mr.. Pleionis- we performed better than the average of the last 20 years. We are very pleased because this year, in these conditions, the system we built with drones and the use of new technology, the laden aerial patrols, the immediate intervention of aerial means, the new forest firefighting doctrine that involves all the forces (Fire Brigade, Forest Chiefs , Army, Police, Coast Guard, Local Government), with the 16 forest commando units and our volunteers, we built organized and structured groups and protected our fellow citizens”.