The forest fire contin­gent launched from North Rhine-West­phalia on Sunday to assist with the devas­tat­ing forest fires in Greece arrived on the Pelo­pon­nese penin­sula on Tues­day after­noon and will subse­quently be deployed to the west­ern part of the penin­sula on the instruc­tions of the local command. The forest fire module, which consists of a total of 57 emer­gency person­nel and 19 vehi­cles from the fire brigades of Bonn, Königswin­ter and Leverkusen and is regis­tered in the Euro­pean Civil Protec­tion Mech­a­nism, is supported in this oper­a­tion by a supply unit from Malteser Hilfs­di­enst and the German Red Cross from Bonn and special­ist advi­sors from the aid organ­i­sa­tion @fire.

On Sunday morn­ing, after the offi­cial request from Brus­sels had been received and a posi­tive deci­sion had been made to send them, the task forces from NRW set off. After an overnight stop at the Tyrol Regional Fire Brigade School, Austria, the task forces contin­ued on to Ancona, Italy, for a ferry connec­tion to Greece. The time on the ferry was used for regen­er­a­tion, and also for further train­ing on the oper­a­tional equip­ment and hand tools that will be used in the course of the mission.

Two exec­u­tives from the Bonn fire brigade trav­elled to Athens by plane on Monday and serve as liai­son offi­cers in the local emer­gency manage­ment. This allowed impor­tant contacts to be made and infor­ma­tion to be exchanged in the run-up to the arrival of the actual forest fire module.

After the arrival of the forest fire module at its desti­na­tion, a base is to be set up there to ensure the supply of the emer­gency forces and to set up sleep­ing facil­i­ties and sani­tary facilities.