Fires near Kladovo under Control
Thursday, 3.8.2017 | News
Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin visited today the members of 98th Air Force Brigade who have been engaged since yesterday on extinguishing forest and grass fires in the areas around Kladovo.
Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin visited today the members of 98th Air Force Brigade from Niš who have been engaged since yesterday, upon request of the Sector for Emergency Management of the Ministry of Interior, on extinguishing forest and grass fires in the areas around Kladovo.
Minister Vulin pointed out that owing to the work of people from the Sector for Emergency Management and the work of the members of Serbian Armed Forces, the situation in the field was stable and that a small scale fire was detected that should be swiftly localised.
-I would like to thank the people from the Sector for Emergency Management for immense self-sacrifice and to say that I am very proud of the members of Serbian Armed Forces because of their competence, their dedication, their hard work and anyway we are always here for the citizens of Serbia – Minister Vulin emphasised.
He added that the Serbian Armed Forces would always be there when it was required and it would always be where it was the hardest.
-Serbia can always count on its military. I hope that we have seen the last flight this day. The crews have, like always, been dedicated, selfless, and capable and Serbia does have someone to rely on in difficult moments – Vulin added.
Minister stated that we as a society have to be aware that these situations would repeat, and that we needed to know that the climate had changed and that for that reason we had to organise ourselves better, so that the local governments and citizens knew that the time was right to reinstate systems that we had been proud of for their organisation and systematisation. He said that the time was right for each of us to get involved in training process and organisation process so that we could be ready for such events.
Answering reporters’ questions, Minister Vulin said that the state had recognised that it was required to organise ourselves better and that it was needed that we all learnt what to do and to know how to react.
-Here, local government has been well organised, and here people have done the work. It would me much easier in such kind of situations, both for the people from the Sector for Emergency Management and Ministry of Defence, if you had an organised local population that participated and was there to help.
Together with the representatives of local government and Sector for Emergency Management of MI, Minister Vulin toured the terrain by SAF helicopter and saw for himself that the fires in the area of Kladovo and Negotin were kept under control. Earlier during the day in the House of Municipality of Kladovo, Deputy President of the municipality Dragan Novaković and Colonel Vlada Plemić from the Sector for Emergency Management had informed the minister about the situation on terrain over the previous two days.
Deputy President of the municipality of Kladovo Dragan Novaković and Colonel Vlada Plemić thanked the minister of defence and the members of Serbian Armed Forces who participated in the activity of extinguishing the fire.
Novaković said that everything that was happening in the prevous period of time was a warning for everyone and that we all need to get involved in resolution of the problem.
The members of Serbian Armed Forces from the 98th Air Force Brigade from Niš threw eight water bombs with more than 16,000 litres of water from a helicopter XT-40 using a helicopter bucket.
