In order to prevent future fires due to problematic EAC equipment
Four measures to prevent future fires due to problematic equipment of the EAC, the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Development, Maria Panagiotou, requested from the Board of Directors of the EAC, in a meeting they had on Thursday. The Minister told KYPE that the meeting took place after three fires were recorded in Paradasov areas in August, caused by EAC cables.
In the meeting, in which, in addition to the Minister and the President of the EAC and his team, the Director and officials of the Forestry Department and the Archpriest participated, the Minister asked the EAC for answers until the next meeting, which is scheduled for August 30 .
“The reason for the meeting was that within August we had 3 fires in rural areas caused by cables. Specifically, from June 7 to August 19, we counted seven fires in forest 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 the EAC should update the schedule for the completion of the replacement of its equipment, which takes place in the forests as a priority, by the next meeting, set for August 30. “Studies have begun for the replacement of the cables from April 2024 and are progressing. I asked for an update of the program to monitor that it is within the schedule that has been filed,” he said.
In addition, the EAC was requested to immediately proceed with the development of a mechanism for monitoring the problematic cables in the forested areas and communities, in addition to the monitoring mechanism already in place for the 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 request is 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 asked for 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 make sure to develop a mechanism for removing branches, i.e. the branches that are collected after the cleanings. “This was a problem that we were told about today and we said that we want a mechanism for the immediate removal of branches”, said Ms. Panagiotou.
Answering a question about the progress of the work of the committee that has set up on the matter, the Minister said that the committee has drawn up programming for a series of actions that the EAC must take, among them the replacement of their equipment. “However, because these three repeated incidents occurred within August and since we must act proactively, we want the EAC to immediately proceed with corrective actions,” he stressed.
