Greece Sends Four Firefighting Planes To France, Albania

Greece Sends Four Firefighting Planes to France, Albania

Greece sent four Canadair CL-415 firefighting aircraft to France and Albania, two for each country, at the request of the respective authorities, Greek Ministry for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection said

ATHENS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th July, 2022) Greece sent four Canadair CL-415 firefighting aircraft to France and Albania, two for each country, at the request of the respective authorities, Greek Ministry for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection said.

The requests were lodged through the so-called European Civil Protection Mechanism aimed at coordinating prevention, response and rescue activities in the event of disasters and emergency situations between the EU countries and 6 other participating states.

A particularly large wildfire was ravaging near the Albanian village of Dhermi (Drymades) in the Himara municipality. This is the second time Greece assists its neighbor in putting out wildfires.

Southern France has also been plagued by widespread wildfires this summer, with authorities struggling to contain the blazes and resorting to the European Civil Protection Mechanism for the first time. Greece was the first country to respond to their distress signal, practically proving the European solidarity, the Greek ministry noted.

The ministry said on Twitter that the two Greek planes are already involved in extinguishing large forest fires in southwestern France.

Paris was quick to thank Athens for the support, while French President Emmanuel Macron posted a tweet in the Greek language, extolling European solidarity.

"A year ago, when Greece was facing terrible fires, we mobilized as Europeans. Yesterday, Greek firefighting aircraft arrived in the south of France to support the work of our firefighters," Macron said.

Record-breaking temperatures of over 40 �C (104 �F) across the Mediterranean caused massive wildfires in Portugal, Spain, Greece, Morocco, Italy and southern France, and the heatwave does not appear to be easing. Over 12,000 people were reportedly evacuated due to the fires in France's Gironde region alone. Thousands of firefighters are struggling to extinguish the wildfires and most countries declared orange alert in the fire-prone regions.