During the summer we left behind, both our country and many countries around the world went through very bad days. The forest fires, which are one of the biggest effects of the climate crisis, continued their effects throughout the summer with their increasing severity. Our forests were destroyed by the fires that took place in our country and had an intense effect in the Aegean and Mediterranean regions, villages and living areas were burned, animals perished and our citizens lost their lives.
At the time of the fires, one of the biggest topics of discussion was firefighting planes. While items such as insufficient firefighting fleet, insufficient support of aircraft and helicopters were on the agenda, support came to our country with firefighting planes from countries such as Spain and Russia. Although the issue got heated after the images of THK’s existing but excluded from the tender came, the fires stopped after a while and the plane issue was forgotten.
It has been announced how many planes will be bought:
Fortunately, today a statement came to show that a step has been taken and studies have been carried out in this regard. Forest General Manager Bekir Karacabey, in his statement on the subject, announced the budget to be allocated to this area in 2022 and the number of aircraft to be purchased.
Referring to the number of helicopters used in his statement, Karacabey said, “We have allocated a budget of 2 billion 400 million liras for the purchase of fire extinguishing aircraft in the 2022 budget related to this. Hopefully, the tender will be concluded before the end of this year. We will now transfer 5 forest fire extinguishing planes to our own fixtures and start using them. Our preparations for this have been completed. In addition, we have worked with 9 helicopters in 2021, while using up to 30 helicopters a year in the past years. Hopefully, in 2022, we will increase the number of these helicopters to 55,” he said.
Expressing that they are planning fire pools and ponds every 5 kilometers especially in regions where the effects of fires are felt intensely, Karacabey stated that they continue to work to strengthen their fleets and teams as the directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
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