Crew training begins today and the helicopters will be operationally ready to fight fires in the next 24 hours
Two firefighting helicopters with their 18 crew members arrived in Cyprus from Jordan to reinforce the Republic of Cyprus' aerial firefighting capabilities.
The crews were welcomed on Monday morning at the “Andreas Papandreou” Air Base, in The Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, Maria Panagiotou, was honored by the Pafos Province, who expressed the gratitude of the Republic of Cyprus to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Royal Jordanian Air Force for their positive response to the call of the Republic of Cyprus.
In her greeting during the welcome event, Mrs. Panagiotou stated that the firefighting helicopters will remain in the country together with their 18-member crew, at least until the arrival of the aircraft that will be leased by the Republic of Cyprus joining forces with the Department of Forestry and the competent authorities services in the effort to effectively deal with the fires.
The training of the crews, noted the Minister of Agriculture, “starts today and the helicopters will be operationally ready to extinguish fires in the next 24 hours”.
< p>Afterwards, Mrs. Panagiotou personally thanked the Minister of Defence, Vassilis Palmas, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kostantinos Kobo, the Chief of the National Guard Georgios Tsitsikostas, the Directorates of the Department of Forestry and Civil Defense and the Ambassador of Cyprus to Jordan, Michalis Ioannou, for the help they provided to complete the procedures and get the helicopters to Cyprus.
At the same time, he said that thanks to the positive response of the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Justice Marios Hartziotis and the Commander of the British Bases Peter Squires, it was ensured that at least one of the two aircraft that each service has is available on a 24-hour basis for firefighting purposes with a response time of approximately 30 minutes.
At the same time, said Mrs. Panagiotou, “we are in contact with neighboring and other countries that are at our disposal, in case they need to provide us with aircraft ».
He pointed out that for the Republic of Cyprus the prevention of fires and their timely treatment is a matter of national security, and added that it is for this reason that the Government is proceeding with the purchase of ten privately owned aircraft and with the transfer of the Aircraft Unit to National Guard.
With regard to the operational readiness of the Republic of Cyprus for preventing and extinguishing fires, it is recalled that in addition to aviation (Department of Forests, Jordan, National Guard, Police and British Bases) ground forces of the Department of Forestry are reinforced and on full alert from April 1st (instead of May 1st as was the case in other years), while the Fire Service, Civil Defense, District Commands and the Game and Wildlife Service are also on standby.
As part of the welcoming event, the head of the Jordanian delegation presented the Minister with an honorary plaque on behalf of the Air Wing of the Jordanian Air Fire Unit.
