Two Air Tractor AT-802 firefighting planes, of the Department of Forests, which had been dispatched to North Macedonia to help extinguish the fires in the country’s forests, arrived at Paphos airport around 4 pm on Wednesday after having had a “very successful” mission, the Department’s Director Savvas Iezekiel told CNA.
The five-day mission to North Macedonia concluded on Wednesday with the return of the mission to Cyprus, which consisted of two Air Tractor AT-802 with four crew and five ground support personnel.
According to Iezekiel, the aircraft took off with three crew members at 10 am local time from North Macedonia to Rhodes for refuelling, and landed at Paphos Airport at around 4 pm.
He added that the remaining members of the mission departed from Skopje by road to Thessaloniki and will subsequently fly to Paphos in the evening.
Iezekiel had told CNA earlier that the mission to North Macedonia was “very successful’. He noted that the Cypriot mission’s operation mode left a positive impression as i
t “improved systems and helped the Republic of North Macedonia.’
The Republic of Cyprus was deployed following a message by the EU Civil Protection Mechanism for assistance to the Republic of North Macedonia to respond to forest fires.
Regarding the assistance to Greece, the Director of the Forests Department said that a team of 70 people (20 from the Forests Department, 20 from the Fire Service, 20 from the Civil Defence and 10 from the Ambulance Service) was mobilised and was prepared for deployment to Greece.
He added that the deployment was eventually cancelled because it was requested that the units going to Greece to extinguish fires should carry with them their equipment, such as fire-fighting vehicles and other heavy equipment, which could not be transported directly as they required a separate means of transport, such as by boat.
Source : Cyprus News Agency