Offering his best wishes to firefighters for the 145th anniversary of the fire service and the day of St. Florian, the patron saint of firefighters, Plenković underlined the importance of strengthening the Croatian Firefighting Association (HVZ).
This has resulted not only in a new law on the fire service and the HVZ's transformation into a central state office, increased budget outlays for the fire service, which now amount to almost HRK 400 million, but also in better interoperability with all other components of the homeland security system, civil protection, government, and local and regional government units, said Plenković.
The latest purchase of vehicles for the fire service confirms the government's commitment to securing new modern tools for its work, he said, recalling that so far firefighting units had been provided with more than 400 new vehicles.
Parliament Deputy Speaker Ante Sanader, who is the president of the HVZ Presidency, said the reform of the firefighting system was successfully implemented after the 2017 fire in Split. With the adoption of the Fire Service Act, after 100 years the HVZ has become a central state office in charge of matters related to firefighting, together with the chief firefighting commander, he said.
We are among the most successful firefighting organisations in the world, as evidenced by successful operations to put out fires, he said.
Chief firefighting commander Slavko Tucaković thanked the government for support and announced that a strategy for the development of the fire service would soon be submitted to the competent ministries.