In August, three fires were recorded in rural areas, caused by EAC cables, says the Minister of Agriculture
Four measures in order to prevent future fires due to problematic equipment of the EAC, requested the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Development , Maria Panagiotou, from the Board of Directors of the EAC, in a meeting they had on Thursday.
The Minister told the KYPE that the meeting took place after in August three fires were recorded in forest areas , caused by cables of the EAC.
The meeting, in which, in addition to the Minister and the President of the EAC with his team, the Director and officials of the Forestry Department and the Archpriest, the Minister asked the EAC for answers until the next meeting, which is scheduled for August 30.
“The reason of meetingwas that within August we had 3 fires in forested areas caused by cables. Specifically, from June 7 to August 19, we counted seven fires in forested areas, which were caused by the EAC network. Of these 3 fires were caused within August, on August 4, 10 and 19″, the Minister told KYPE.
As Mrs. Panagiotou said, the response of the President of the Board of Directors of the EAC, George Petros “was very positive”, while she noted that the Ministry's dialogue with the EAC is already underway. “From the summer of 2023, a committee has been created between the Department of Forestry, the EAC, the Fire Service and the Game Service to plan for the replacement of the problematic equipment of the EAC and for the clearing of branches from the network,” he recalled.
At Thursday's meeting, according to the Minister, it was decided that until the next meeting, set for August 30, the EAC should update the timetable for the completion of the replacement of its equipment, which is prioritized in the forests. “Studies have begun for the replacement of the cables from April 2024 and are progressing. I requested an update of the program so that we can monitor that it is within the schedule that has been submitted,” he said.
Furthermore, the EAC was asked toimmediately proceed with the development of a mechanism for monitoring the problematic cablesin forested areas and communities, in addition to the monitoring mechanism already in place for forest land. “That's the most immediate thing we want to do now, because we have cables coming loose due to weather conditions, problems with transformers, and cables going through tree branches that should have already been cleared. We want the development of a mechanism immediately to monitor and fix the problems”, he underlined.
The third requestis to create a mechanism for the immediate response of the EAC during the night when a fire occurs. As Ms. Panagiotou said, the average response time of the units, whether of the Forestry Department or the Fire Department, is around 12 minutes, “while we noticed that there is a long delay in the EAC coming to cut off the power so that the Strengths. That is why we requested the creation of a mechanism so that the response from the EAC is in the same time frame so that there is no delay”, he noted.
The fourth is for the EAC to take care to develop a mechanism for removing branches, i.e. the branches collected after cleaning. “This was a problem that we were told about today and we said that we want a mechanism for the immediate removal of the branches”, said Ms. Panagiotou.
In response to a question about the development of the work of the committee set up on the matter, the Minister said that the committee has drawn up programming for a series of actions to be taken by the EAC, among them the replacement of their equipment. “However, because these three repeated incidents occurred within August and since we have to act proactively, we want the EAC to proceed with corrective actions immediately,”, he stressed.
