NATO has deployed a document 40 firefighting plane to Greece to assist the nation fight wildfires, the alliance has introduced.
Among the many 40 plane provided by the NATO Help and Procurement Company (NSPA) are 29 firefighting helicopters and, for the primary time ever, 11 firefighting aeroplanes.
That is the eleventh consecutive yr the NSPA has provided firefighting plane to Greece.
The assorted plane are to be deployed to twenty totally different strategic places throughout Greece to be able to cut back the time between refill and successive drops.
"Aerial firefighting missions are among the many most complicated in aviation, as crews must take care of the 4 Basic parts of Water, Earth, Fireplace and Air," Lieutenant Colonel Panagiotis Filis, a profession pilot with the Hellenic Air Drive and now a member of Allied Air Command, stated in a press release, describing himself as "grateful" for the NSPA's help.
This comes on high of the help provided by the EU's Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) which this yr, for the primary time, pre-positioned 204 firefighters from different EU member states to Greece.
The ERCC's reserve of 12 firefighting plane, that are additionally loaned from member states, are at the moment deployed in different European nations that battle wildfires together with Albania, Portugal, Spain, France, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.
By 30 July, practically 600,000 hectares had already been burnt throughout the EU by forest fires, knowledge from the European Forest Fireplace Info System (EFFIS) present.
That is the second-highest tally noticed for any yr since information started in 2006 after 2017 when near one million hectares have been turned to ashes.
Heatwaves which are occurring extra regularly and turning into extra extreme throughout Europe as a consequence of local weather change are fuelling the wildfires. Drought circumstances, that are impacting about half of the EU's territory, are additionally facilitating their unfold.
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