site.btaOver 220 People Trained to Work with BG-Alert System

A total of 223 people have already been trained to work with the BG-Alert system, seven of them from the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, Chief Commissioner Alexander Dzhartov, head of the General Directorate for Fire Safety and Population Protection said on Thursday. Training is also scheduled next week.

According to him, institutions need time to get used to working with the early warning system, which is quite useful as the software provides a great opportunity to warn many people at the same time.

Certainly, the information exchange process between the institutions that have the relevant data, will be improved. The steps to be taken have been included in a plan submitted to the Prime Minister, the chief commissioner added.

The fire department is prepared for the wild fire season, Dzhartov said. He added that six drones have already been purchased, and preventive observations and extinguishing operations are to be carried out. Alexander Dzhartov added that if there are no problems with the public procurement procedures, another 20 drones are expected this year.

Training was also carried out with the Air Force on helicopters flying firefighters near a fire, which is extremely important, since they must be prepared for extinguishing fires in hard-to-reach areas, he explained.

“We managed to install 63 water fire extinguishing systems on pickup trucks and utility terrain vehicles, so that we can use them on terrains that are difficult to access,” Dzhartov added.

Over 95% of last year's fires were caused by human activity, the clearing of agricultural land and household activities, according to fire department statistics. Regarding the fines, they are between BGN 200 and 2,000, even when thousands of acres of forest have been affected, head of the General Directorate for Fire Safety said.