The members of the Forest Actions Support Group (GRAF) of Lleida Firefighters ask the Government to reconsider the closure of the Lleida headquarters and reverse its intention to unify it with the Tremp unit.
The measure affects the seven members of the GRAF Lleida Sud, who have claimed their work, both when responding to forest fires and in their planning and prevention.
They defend that the work they do “must be done from the territory”, since they know the terrain first-hand, and they denounce that the decision to close the unit is an “irresponsibility” that has been taken “from the offices in Barcelona” without follow operational criteria.
The seven members of the GRAF Lleida Sud affected by the closure of the headquarters have shown their rejection of this decision in a press conference in Lleida in which members of the GRAF of Rubí and Reus have also attended. They denounce that the “dismantling” of the unit will also eventually affect these two other headquarters.
The closure will entail the transfer of the seven troops from the Lleida headquarters to Tremp, a measure that all of them reject en bloc, since they consider that the GRAF must act from the territory.
They defend that, among other things, they know the terrain, what its critical points are, the state of the vegetation and how they affect the weather conditions in specific areas. All of this helps them make the best decisions in the event of a fire.
“We cannot reach a fire as aliens who arrive and do not know the area,” denounces Iván Estévez, who defends that the only way to work is to do it “from the territory and connected with the rest of the actors who work.”
The troops also denounce that the decision of the General Directorate of Prevention, Extinction of Fires and Rescues and the Government contradicts the public statements made by members of the executive itself when they affirm that preventive measures are necessary to avoid fires.
For its part, the Department of the Interior defends that it is a “very studied” decision and that it should allow “improving and streamlining the operations of the force.”
