This year’s and the next fire fighting season, the great fire in Attica and the AEGIS program were among others the focus of an interview granted by the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Vassilis Kikilias, to the newspaper “Evening Evening”.

Mr. Kikilias pointed out that, as they found with the fire in Corinthia, there is no longer a “distance” from the fire prevention season”, which, as he said, they now see “is extending due to the climate crisis”. “We have already gone through 5 months of hard fighting,” he said. At the same time, he emphasized the fire-meteorological conditions that prevailed this year, stressing that “according to the National Observatory, 2024 is the year with the worst fire-meteorological conditions in the last 40 years”, while he emphasized that the Fire Brigade since the beginning of the fire season has faced over from 4,500 fires.

“This year we had more than 200 fires, which broke out with a danger index of 4 or 5, many of them were next to or inside settlements, and which, if not dealt with in time, would have grown out of control, threatening property and human lives,” noted the minister.

With reference to the fire in Attica, Mr. Kikilias emphasized that the fire occurred under “extreme conditions” within a settlement in Varnavas.

“In this fire, from the first moment people were at risk of being burned, and this risk was constant: In Varnava, Grammatiko, Nea Makri, Kalendzi, Mikrohori, Kapandriti, etc. All these are areas with houses and people which were to be removed, and if possible the world’s goods should not be burnt there. “Well, the opinion that the danger was only when he reached the other side of Penteli is wrong, unless we say that we don’t care about the areas I mentioned to you,” he noted. In addition, he pointed out that this year the Arson Crimes Division has made 396 arrests for arson and issued 1,030 fines.

At the same time, he referred to the 831 recruitments for 2025 that will proceed to strengthen the Fire Brigade, emphasizing the forest commanders, whose units, as he said, almost tripled last year and pointed out that next year we are expected to “start receiving projects of the equipment program SHIELD”.

Regarding “AEGIS”, a program worth 2.1 billion euros, the minister said that the largest part of it (1.9 billion) has been auctioned in just one year and added that “many projects have already started to be contracted”. As he said, “the receipts of the AEGIS projects will start in 2025 and will be completed in 2030”.

Asked about the deletion from the ND of Mario Salmas, the minister stated that Mr. Salmas was not deleted because he submitted questions to government ministers, which, as Mr. Kikilias said, is “the duty of a member of parliament”, but was deleted “by the relevant body of the party because it insisted on raising again and again the issue of a scandalous contract from the Ministry of Culture, even though it already had all the answers from the relevant minister”.

Finally, with regard to the election of the President of the Republic, Mr. Kikilias emphasized that “it is a very serious process” and underlined: “MPs of all parties, not only ND, should vote with complete free will, regardless of party affiliation . If this logic does not prevail, then we will constantly undermine the prestige and power of the respective President of the Republic, the highest State factor”.