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Several Swedish provinces are facing particularly violent fires this summer. On Sunday, nearly 50 homes were still active in the country.
France sends reinforcements to Sweden in the face of the particularly violent fires ravaging several provinces of the country. A detachment of French soldiers, specialized in the fight against the ground against the fire, arrived Sunday, July 22nd in Sweden, in complement of Canadair European – including two French – already sent on the spot.
Thirty firefighters from the Civil Protection Training and Response Units (UIISC) landed in Stockholm (Sweden) shortly after midnight Sunday evening, according to an AFP journalist. They must be joined by 30 firemen of the departmental services of fire and relief (SDIS) of the south of France on Monday.
These soldiers have a mission: to make sure that the controlled fires do not leave again. "To work with active selvedge, little active or isolated, to treat the surface, to scrape the ground.It is a long struggle" said the head of the detachment, Stéphane Nisslé, at the international airport of the Swedish capital. "We could encounter peat zones, humus strata very consistent and in which the fire tends to smolder" he added.
Sunday, the Swedish Agency of the Civil Protection still had some 50 active households, including about 20 in the far north of the country. The most violent fires are in the provinces of Gävleborg, Dalarna, Jämtland and Västernorrland. They still ignite some 250 km2 of forest in these regions.
Sweden, under-equipped for this type of event, sought the help of its neighbors by activating the European Civil Protection Mechanism. Italy, Germany, Norway and Poland have already sent men and equipment on site. Stockholm has also contacted NATO through its Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Center.
On the French side, two Canadair soldiers from the Nîmes-Garons base (Gard) have been bombing one of the main fires in the Kårböle region of central Sweden since the end of the week. Friday and Saturday, they realized 234 drops and 57 hours of flight, with the support of a Beechcraft charged with reconnaissance missions.
"The advantage is the presence of numerous bodies of water " which offer aircraft refueling points less distant," said Colonel Pierre Schaller, responsible for the mission.
"On the other hand, paradoxically, the little wind is not a facilitating criterion . In the Mediterranean, the mistral and the tramontane push the fires but facilitate the visibility by orienting the columns of "," he added.
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