arrival of a detachment of French soldiers

A detachment of French soldiers specialized in ground firefighting arrived last night in Sweden, where forest fires continue to rage despite the support of Canadair Europeans, including two French. Thirty firefighters from the Civil Protection Training and Response Units (UIISC) landed shortly after midnight (2200 GMT) in Stockholm, an AFP journalist said. They should be joined today by 30 firefighters of the SDIS of the South of France

Their mission: to make sure that the controlled fires do not leave again. "Working on active, low or isolated edges, treating the surface, scraping the ground is a long struggle," said Detachment leader Stéphane Nisslé at the international airport in the Swedish capital. "We could meet peat zones, humus strata very consistent and in which the fire has a tendency to brood," he added.

Two Canadair departed from the base of Nîmes-Garons (south- east) have been bombarding one of the main fires in the Kårböle region (center), about 400 km north-west of the capital, since the weekend. Friday and Saturday, they realized 234 drops and 57 hours of flight, with the support of a Beechcraft charged with reconnaissance missions. The Swedish Civil Protection Agency yesterday counted about fifty active homes, including twenty in the far north of the country.

The most violent fires are in the provinces of Gävleborg, Dalarna, Jämtland and Västernorrland, blazing some 250 km2 of forest. French firefighters face conditions that are generally comparable to those encountered in the south of France with fierce, widespread fires, some of which threaten residential areas. "The advantage is the presence of numerous bodies of water" that offer planes refueling points less distant, according to Colonel Pierre Schaller, responsible for the mission. "On the other hand, paradoxically, the lack of wind is not a facilitating criterion.In the Mediterranean, the Mistral and the Tramontane push fires but facilitate visibility by directing the columns of smoke," he told AFP .

Under-equipped for this type of intervention, Sweden asked for help from its neighbors by activating the European Civil Protection Mechanism. Italy, Germany, Norway and Poland responded to the call by sending men and equipment. Stockholm also contacted NATO via its Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Center.