The government of Macedonia at a session late Saturday reached a decision to declare a 30-day state of emergency in the municipalities of Makedonski Brod and Caska in west Macedonia, which have been gripped by forest fires in the past few days.
"The decision has been made to enable all institutions in Macedonia to take coordinated measures to contain forest fires effectively, especially given the fact that extremely high temperatures are forecast in the coming days, which increases the possibility of fires to spread. It is one of the measures designed to guarantee safety in these regions and to fully put out the wildfires," stated Deputy PM and Interior Minister OIiver Spasovski, who also chairs the crisis management steering committee.
According to him, the government has declared state of emergency in the two municipalities because the current state of play requires coordinated action between the state institutions.
"The situation there is not out of control. It has been concluded that a state of emergency needs to be declared in these areas in order to extinguish raging fires and to prevent them from spreading. With no state of emergency in effect, the local self-governments would have to battle the blazes on their own. With state of emergency in place, all state institutions will have to engage and put their capacities at disposal to address the emergency," Spasovski said noting there was 'no room for panic'.
Forest fires are being put out by firefighting teams and army servicemen. Bulgaria and Turkey are also helping Macedonia in an effort to contain active forest fires.
