WORKING MEETING ON FIRE PROTECTION TAKES PLACE IN ZADAR

( Editorial: --> 4372 ) ZADAR, Aug 18 (Hina) - Croatian interior Minister Ivan Penic held a working meeting with representatives of coastal counties and police in Zadar on Tuesday, focusing on the recent fires that broke out in Croatia. Penic, president of the Croatian Fire-Fighting Association, Franjo Greguric, head of the government Crisis Committee, Miljenko Bukovac and Main Fire Chief Mladen Jurin, held a press conference after the closed-door meeting. "We concluded that we need to urgently improve long-term fire prevention measures. We are not satisfied with the level of prevention, including measures by newspapers, especially with the promotion of fire prevention information, the work of investigative services and preventive measures by public companies. All fire prevention activities by these services must be brought up to the necessary level," Penic said. "We are prepared to provide momentary assistance to counties and police for the prevention of new fires. We insist on quick interventions, because the help of helicopters and canadairs is not necessary with quick interventions," he added. Investigating fire-fighting services must significantly boost their work along with other investigative services. There are 108 fire inspectors in Croatia. They have been asked to be more rigorous in punishing persons responsible for the breakout of fires. Public companies - Croatian Forests, Croatian Roads, Croatian Waterworks and others, must from now on do everything possible aimed at fire prevention. Every municipality, or several municipalities working together, and every town must establish volunteer fire-fighting societies, with established duties. Help will be provided. This especially pertains to island municipalities. Penic announced an amendment to the law on fire-fighting, which would stipulate a more secure way of financing all fire-fighting personnel, especially volunteer fire-fighting personnel. Significantly higher sources will be set aside from the state budget for fire-fighting, including the purchase of two canadairs - one through a World Bank credit, and the other from the budget, in instalments, Penic stressed. This year's fire-fighting activities were wars by themselves, and professional fire-fighters proved themselves to be heroes, especially the pilots of canadairs and other fire-fighting aircraft, he said. "We have defended numerous towns, Smokvica, Blato, Mokosica, Cavtat and many others. We defended some towns several times over. The Split-Dalmatia County has visibly improved its fire prevention after last year's fire on the island of Hvar. We have to always be ready for fires, not just in the summer," Penic said. Greguric stressed the successful cooperation between the Interior Ministry and Fire-Fighting Association. "We have not lost any settlement, but, unfortunately, we lost two lives in fires in August," Greguric said- He stressed that local governments and self-government must organise fire-prevention activities. Civil Defence personnel also played a large role in putting out the fires, head of the government Crisis Committee, Miljenko Bukovac said. Mladen Jurin, Main Fire Chief, stressed that fires which broke out on August 5 and 6 had happened during a period when it was the most favourable. There were 20 fires that night, 15 of which had been put out quickly, and every one of them could have gained large proportions. Five fires escaped control because they were helped by a strong wind. Thirty houses burned in the last fire, but, despite the great damage, a lot had been saved. Every fire is followed by a police investigation. The big fires in the south of the Adriatic were caused by lightning. One fire on the island of Lastovo had been set, and the suspect, an Austrian citizen, is still in detention. One fire was caused by German citizens who confessed to have carelessly set the fire by signal guns, Penic said. One other person was arrested in the Sibenik-Knin County, but it cannot be said with certainty whether the person set the fire on purpose or whether the fire had been caused by accident, Penic added. (hina) lml 181618 MET aug 98