The army’s Super Pumas, sent to Greece yesterday to fight fires, are in action.
The army’s fire-fighting work in Greece began today, Sunday. Super Puma helicopters were used to drop water on forest fires in the Evros district in the northeast of the country. The deployment is expected to last 6 days. @SwissHumAidUnit pic.twitter.com/zh0C8CJ19I
— VBS – DDPS (@vbs_ddps) September 3, 2023
The three planes that took off from Locarno yesterday with around twenty specialists on board poured water on the fires in the Evros district in the northeast of the country. This is shown by some photos and videos that were published today, Sunday, by the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS) via X (formerly Twitter). The Swiss team in Greece also includes some employees of the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Corps (SHA).
In Greece, Dadia National Park has been burning for almost two weeks. Twenty people died in the fires. According to EU estimates, this is the largest forest fire ever to occur in the Union. What makes the operations complex is the fact that the fires burn in difficult terrain. The flames can therefore be fought almost exclusively with firefighting aircraft.
TG 20 from Saturday, September 2nd, 2023
Published on: September 3rd, 2023, 6:22 p.m. Last modified on: September 3rd, 2023, 6:22 p.m