NATO Allies and partners help Georgia fight major forest fire
NATO Allies and partners have helped Georgia contain a major forest fire in the Samtskhe-Javakheti Region of Georgia. Recognising that inhabited areas could be at risk, the Georgian authorities approached NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) for assistance on 29 August 2017. Shortly thereafter, assets from NATO Allies and partners were on the scene: Turkey provided one firefighting aircraft and two helicopters; Azerbaijan provided a firefighting helicopter; and Ukraine provided a firefighting aircraft. By Friday (1 September 2017), the fire had been contained.
This follows another Georgian request to the EADRCC for firefighting assistance, sent to the Center on 22 August. By 28 August, two NATO Allies (Turkey and the United States) and three partners (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus) helped bring forest fires under control near Georgia’s Borjomi Municipality. Israel and Ukraine also offered their support.
The EADRCC is NATO’s principal civil emergency response mechanism in the Euro-Atlantic area. It is active all year round, operational on a 24/7 basis, and involves NATO’s 29 Allies and all partner countries. The Centre functions as a clearing-house system for coordinating requests and offers of assistance mainly in case of natural and man-made disasters. More information is available here: www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_52057.htm.