It is announced that today, the 2nd of September 2007, ground forces, air means and machinery have been allocated to the appropriate services of the General Secretariat for Civil Protection, to face the on going fires all over the country.

     The Armed Forces responding to their role of contribution to fire fighting, fulfilled 100 % of all  requests submitted by the authorities involved, allocating the following personnel and means :
 
• Prefecture of Arkadia              :   161 persons
• Prefecture of Ilia                      :   420 persons
• Prefecture of Corinth               :     23 persons
• Prefecture of Lakonia              :     42 persons
• Prefecture of Messinia            :      81 persons
• Prefecture of Imathia               :     40  persons
• 390 mounted patrols for forest fire protection with 1.418 persons
• 575 persons (the 596th  Airborn Infantry Battalion,  an Engineers Company and a Military Police Platoon) as reinforce
• 2 chain saws platoons (60 persons) with 4 more Platoons (120 persons) in readiness, with a total of 90 chain saws
• TOTALLY : 2.940 persons
• Surveillance flights for forest fire protection : 13 exits with 43 flight hours
• 12 firefighting aircraft CL-215 (13/5) and CL-415 (8/7), which conducted 22 sorties with 52,5 flight hours, and 440 water-bomb drops, equal to 2.860 tons of water
• international fire fighting aircrafts (2 French, 1 Spanish, 1 Croatian  CL-415 and 1 Russian B-200) : 9 sorties with 29 flight hours
• 4 CHINOOK helicopters
• 8 UH-1H
• 2 U-17 aircraft
• 4 Super Pumas
• 1 P-3B aircraft
• 2 AB-212 helicopters
• 4 Ambulances
• 40 Engineers earth moving equipments (bulldozers,  leveling graders, loaders, dumpers etc)
• also buses, fire fighting vehicles, water carriers, Steyer vehicles, generator units, and other equipment, as requested by the General Secretariat for Civil  Protection
• 17 veterinaries have been forwarded to the Prefectures of Messinia, Ilia and Arcadia
• readiness for immediate delivery of 85 tons of supplies to assist the fire afflicted population

     Finally, it should be noted that additional forces and equipment remain in full readiness, in order to intervene and contribute to the  fire fighting, when called upon.                        
                                                                                            
                                   LTC Charalambos  Laloussis
                                        HNDGS Spokesman