Mayor of Rijeka Vojko Obersnel met with firefighters from the Public Fire Department of the City of Rijeka, reports Fiuman on September 1, 2017.
Rijeka’s firemen went out into the field to help extinguish wildfires in Dalmatia in July and August – in Makarska, Split, Knin, Kistanje, Drniš, Benkovac and the National Park Sjeverni Velebit. On certain days, apart from firemen from Opatija and Krk, up to 12 firefighters from Rijeka’s fire department were present on site at the same time, meaning all available firefighting forces from Rijeka worked in Dalmatia throughout the summer.
Mayor Obersnel expressed his gratitude to firemen from Rijeka for intervening on Kvarner, in Dalmatia, and on Velebit. “I want to thank all of you for making citizens feel safe through your hard work, be it in Rijeka and its surrounding, or elsewhere in Croatia when the need arises”, said the mayor.
Rijeka’s fire brigades carried out 950 interventions so far this year, 500 of those related to fires, while the rest were technical interventions. Even though 180 wildfires have been reported in 2017, none of those fires spread to such an extent to draw attention of the public and the media.
To help make Rijeka’s fire department as effective as possible, the City of Rijeka is soon to procure five new fire engines for interventions in urban areas and in forests. The mayor also announced the City is working to secure a part of the city budget to raise the salaries of 140 firefighters in Rijeka in 2018.
