The Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, states that “it is guaranteed” that the aerial means of the Fire Department of the Generalitat will have enough water to put out the fires this summer. The councilor said this in an interview with the ACN agency in which, despite acknowledging the low level of reserves in the reservoirs of the internal basins, he reiterated that the hydroplanes can be filled in other places. “A lack of water resources can mean that they have to go further to load”, acknowledged Elena, who insists that “there will be water above and below to put out the fires”.
Joan Ignasi Elena has announced that the arrival of the extraordinary air means planned for this campaign will be brought forward again, that the endowments will be equivalent to those of 2023 but there will be more cash. In the same way, he was confident and said that it remains to be seen if this summer will be worse than that of 2023. “Last year was already very hard and the previous one too, and God ‘hi-do how we got out of it’, said the head of Interior. In this sense, he has defended the preparation and response capacity of the Generalitat Fire Brigade, both in terms of the number of employees and with respect to the training of the members of the corps. “We have the means we need to tackle the summer”, he guaranteed.
Elena has also referred to the difficulties that the aerial means will have to face in the fight against fires as a result of the low level of water reserves in the reservoirs of the internal basins. Although helicopters can use the reservoirs distributed throughout Catalonia to fill the reservoirs, the state of the reservoirs does affect seaplanes. These devices have a cargo capacity of 3,000 litres, three times that of a bomber, and need areas that are wide, long and deep enough to operate safely.
“The problem in the event of a lack of water resources is that they may have to go further to make the wheel to be able to load water”, explained the head of the Interior, who added that, in any case, it is guaranteed that when there there is a fire there will be “water below and above to put out the fires”.
Once again the extraordinary aerial means planned for the summer campaign will arrive early. Joan Ignasi Elena has explained that the decision that was already taken in 2023 was not exceptional, but that “the idea was to extend it over time”. Regarding the air resources available, he indicated that they will be similar to the previous year. What will indeed increase is the number of employees, since this year a new class of Firefighters has graduated from the Public Security Institute of Catalonia (ISPC).
In addition, this year the addition of a new batch of volunteer firefighters is also planned. Precisely, regarding this group, the Minister of the Interior has said that he does not expect the protests of last year to be repeated because agreements have been reached with the Council of Volunteer Firefighters. In fact, on Thursday this body gave the green light to the procedures to begin the modifications to the regulations of the group. This will make it possible to incorporate aspects such as compensation for permanent incapacity due to an accident in service, the implementation of a savings plan or the simplification of the procedure for joining the corps in future calls.
Councilor Elena, on the other hand, has taken iron out of the controversies that have arisen around the new models of the Fire Brigade’s truck and has avoided referring to the legal processes open in relation to the ground means and the defective oxygen cylinders. He assured that in recent years, intensive work has been done to bring the body up to date and internal protocols have been changed to ensure better “traceability of everything that is done” and to achieve better maintenance of all the material.
