July 27, 2022 - A meeting was held at the firefighter centre in Divulje, where this year's wildfire situation in Croatia was discussed.
HRT reports that Croatia has 74 percent more fires this year than in the same period last year. The main topic of discussion was reducing the risk of fire on forest and agricultural lands.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, Davor Božinović, said that Croatia is lucky to have a firefighting community that has continuously protected us for 150 years, and added that during that time, firefighters have been organised to manage the system, i.e. everything related to fires, and the state is there to help them and relieve them of everything that is not directly related to firefighting.
He announced that the next Canadair aircrafts that Croatia will purchase will be financed by the EU funds in the amount of 100%, and that Croatia will be the first in a series of countries to be equipped with the latest generation of Canadair.
The Minister of Agriculture, Marija Vučković, announced that she will analyze data on abandoned lands and the state of forest infrastructure, and stressed that a lot of public funds are invested in fire protection and demining. - The Agricultural Land Act has a possibility to activate neglected agricultural land whose owners are unknown or do not respond. In cooperation with local governments and the Ministry of Agriculture, we will additionally consider the possibilities arising from this provision, she said.
The season is very exhausting for firefighters and technicians, chief fire chief Slavko Tucaković asserted, noting that two days ago there were 39 fires in open spaces that no one knew about because they were quickly extinguished. He boasted that Croatian firefighters won two golds, one silver and two bronzes at the World Firefighting Olympiad in Celje last week, which has never happened in history. Tucaković asserted that the state allocates a lot for firefighting and that HRK 80 million has been set aside for the construction of the Firefighting Center of Excellence in Vučevica. The city of Split allocated more than 21.4 million kunas for the Public Fire Brigade, and the county community up to four million kuna, he added.
