Supetar is learning from the disasters of last year and pouring more funding into fire safety.
While some unfortunately haven’t learned from the catastrophic fires that devastated Dalmatia during the summer season last year, Supetar is somewhat ahead of the rest with plans to build a modern, multifunctionalfire station worth two million euro, with the funding for this mega-megaproject being sought directly from EU funds.
As Morski writes on the 19th of February, 2018, the town has invested considerably in firefighting in recent years, monetary allocations increased from 630,000 kuna to more than a million kuna in the 2018 budget, and Supetar is currently in the process of procuring a new class A fire engine.
Supetar is in need of a new, modern fire station. Firefighting on this island has a long history, and how many of these incredibly courageous people are actually required was seen plainly and clearly last summer when the fires that ravaged Dalmatia and even threatened Split became dangerously out of control. In such fires outside of Supetar, many firefighters from Supetar on the island of Brač are often involved.
As previously mentioned, Supetar has invested considerably in fire safety in recent years, but, as Supetar’s mayor Ivan Marković revealed to Dalmacija Danas, the inadequacy of the space behind the football field at which the fire station is currently situated is becoming increasingly evident.
“We see how much the firefighters mean to us [how important they are] every summer, and we remember how state officials celebrated them last summer too, but a large part, those promises remained just that, promises. However, we in the town of Supetar don’t languish, and we came up with the idea of building a modern fire station in Supetar at the location of ”Žedno draga,” stated the mayor.
Obviously, he says, the current space, the garage below the football field, is inappropriate for proper firefighting vehicles and the technique with which the firefighting unit of the voluntary society engages, in addition to it being a space that isn’t owned by the town, and that means that it’s only a matter of time before they’ll need to evacuate from it in any case.
”The construction of a fire station would solve several issues at once, and increase prevention and secure the safety of our residents. The ultimate goal is not only to create the necessary conditions for our firefighters, but also to implement it into the entire social and economic life of Supetar, Postira, Sutivan and Nerežišća, as well as our island as a whole, so as to become not only a place for the training and education of new firefighters, but also as a gathering place for our people, especially young people,” added Supetar’s mayor.
In case of disaster, the station would serve as a command and information center for the protection of the entire island.
”In the case of such exceptional events, it would be the central point of evacuation for the population, the distribution center for humanitarian aid, drinking water, food, medicine, etc. Nothing similar to date exists on Brač and if it’s known that this is the largest Central Dalmatian island of nearly 400 square kilometers, an island inhabited by over 13,000 people, an island whose economy is almost entirely dependent on tourism and is visited by a quarter of a million tourists during the year, then it’s quite obvious how important it is to build such a fire station, concluded Mayor Marković.
