N1HRV — broadcast
20260920 190000 UTC
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[00:00:21] Good evening, this is another red line, I am Marina Fratucan, Omiš,
[00:00:25] Brač, Deliblatska Peščara, Stolovi, the area of Trebinje and Mostar,
[00:00:28] whether the fires could have been prevented or at least brought under control faster,
[00:00:32] whether the reaction of all in the chain of fire extinguishing in the countries
[00:00:36] of the region was timely, how much the countries of the region are working on fire prevention,
[00:00:39] whether firefighters have adequate equipment, whether
[00:00:42] helicopters could have been used earlier and citizens warned earlier,
[00:00:46] when will we view fires as a consequence whose
[00:00:49] causes should be addressed and finally, what about the burnt
[00:00:53] areas whose rehabilitation sometimes lasts for several decades,
[00:00:57] more prevention, less operation, about fires in the countries.
[00:01:00] of the region on the red line tonight, Slobodan Milanović, professor at the Faculty of Forestry
[00:01:04] in Belgrade, Slavko Tucaković, chief fire commander in Croatia,
[00:01:08] and Božidar Kasalo, head of civil
[00:01:15] of course, during the past month and
[00:01:18] more than a month, actually, almost two. September is the month,
[00:01:22] it should somehow calm down on the ground. We hope that is the case.
[00:01:26] However, this past weekend there were
[00:01:29] active fires, primarily in Croatia on Brač, Mr.
[00:01:32] Tucaković, that is one of the bigger fires
[00:01:35] besides the one that was, of course, in Omiš which claimed human
[00:01:39] lives, as far as I understand, 14%
[00:01:42] of Brač was burned, you correct me if that is
[00:01:45] not true, a large number of firefighters, around 200, as
[00:01:49] the data shows, from the wider area, dozens
[00:01:51] of vehicles, water bombers and so
[00:01:54] on, I mentioned prevention in the introduction,
[00:01:57] you also spoke about that. What would
[00:02:01] you say now, at the end of September and
[00:02:05] after a really turbulent fire season in
[00:02:08] Croatia, what is the situation, who really failed,
[00:02:19] the fire was localized in the area of Brač, we can state that according
[00:02:23] to preliminary estimates, we have about 5,000 hectares
[00:02:26] of burned area, so dry grass, low vegetation.
[00:02:30] some pine forest, so
[00:02:33] a large number of firefighters, so who came to
[00:02:37] extinguish this fire, so first of all forces from the island of Brač were mobilized,
[00:02:41] then Split-Dalmatia County which were immediately introduced, and
[00:02:44] at the same time forces were mobilized
[00:02:46] from the entire coast, from Primorsko-Goranska, Istrian and
[00:02:50] all the way to Dubrovnik-Neretva, Šibenik, Zadar, so all the forces
[00:02:54] that were needed at that moment, uh,
[00:02:57] went to Brač, so to fight with this. uh fire, so,
[00:03:01] besides that fire on Brač, which was, which was really
[00:03:05] big, fierce, let's remember the fire near Omiš which was
[00:03:08] devastating, I would call it, I don't know, in my 15
[00:03:12] years of career as chief fire commander, I haven't experienced
[00:03:16] such a fire, something so terrible, and when we talk about
[00:03:19] the color of the flame itself, it was not yellow, nor orange, nor
[00:03:23] red, but purple, which spread really due to strong
[00:03:27] winds, unfortunately there were
[00:03:30] fatalities, so there are still people in
[00:03:34] the hospital in serious condition, truly sincere condolences to all
[00:03:38] those who suffered here in
[00:03:41] the fire, so a great material damage that
[00:03:44] occurred, so to people, part of the houses
[00:03:47] burned or scorched, so on agricultural and
[00:03:50] objects, but also vineyards and everything that happened, that is
[00:03:53] an irreparable damage when a fire occurs, so not only
[00:03:57] in the sense that we talk about... about direct damage, but
[00:04:01] that long-term damage, so there is no more forest, no more life,
[00:04:04] no more plants, no more animal world and everything
[00:04:08] that happened and the worst thing that will happen now are
[00:04:12] floods or soil erosion that will occur and will actually
[00:04:15] cause one uh even worse damage
[00:04:19] that could have been, so something worst that can happen, so it is
[00:04:23] now very necessary to react very quickly, so both about reforestation
[00:04:26] and about removing, so trees, we are now here in the area.
[00:04:30] Milna found what burned ten years ago, those trees were still there,
[00:04:34] they are still there, so they burned again, you know, no one removed them and so on and
[00:04:38] so, so there is a lot to establish and we can talk about that for a long, long
[00:04:41] time, whether prevention failed, well, look,
[00:04:45] prevention, I've been talking about it for a long time and we will continue to talk about it this
[00:04:48] year, so we have already had two meetings this year, we talked about
[00:04:52] what everyone should do,
[00:04:55] how, but now we will push it even more because
[00:04:58] prevention is actually the key to success. Exactly this more prevention,
[00:05:02] less operation is therefore the key to success, so everything
[00:05:05] is overgrown, everything is neglected, there are no
[00:05:07] roads, as we saw in the area of Omiš when there was a fire, very
[00:05:11] few roads. The roads are narrow, so they need to be opened, they need
[00:05:15] to be made, but not only that, they also need to be maintained, it is not enough to build a road
[00:05:19] if we are not going to support it and so on, so in that
[00:05:22] prevention we can talk a lot and that is something
[00:05:26] that we all need to talk about, so about early detection, we invested a lot
[00:05:29] in early detection, so fires, 280 cameras, it all
[00:05:33] monitors, there are people, there are patrols and so on, did that
[00:05:37] fail, we know that the notification system in Omiš failed,
[00:05:40] uh, we... heard an SMS didn't arrive, uh
[00:05:44] well, I don't know if an SMS should have been sent or not, we can talk
[00:05:47] about that when it comes to such rapid events that spread
[00:05:51] at high speed, so that early
[00:05:54] warning system, for early warning, it has the very name, so as long as we have time,
[00:05:58] however, here when you have a uh lightning
[00:06:01] spread of fire, so what would happen, so one example
[00:06:04] we had at the Hotel Rus Kamen when we locked people in the hotel, we didn't
[00:06:08] let them out, we actually saved a large number of lives and the same thing
[00:06:12] was done in the Milen area, when we were in the area
[00:06:16] of the Gava Hotel, a lot of people were accommodated, they were in the hotel, they were not
[00:06:19] allowed to go out until the fire passed, the fire passed very quickly, so that is a matter
[00:06:23] of the commander's decision on the ground,
[00:06:26] we will continue to talk about this prevention you touched upon, so we can also talk
[00:06:30] about what that prevention means with these upcoming landslides,
[00:06:34] rains that you announced, so
[00:06:38] uh a very high fire hazard index, dried plants,
[00:06:42] so... is something that is certainly known and needs to be acted upon, so,
[00:06:45] to act now, because we must act now for what will happen to us
[00:06:49] in the next four to five years, the hazard index is very high
[00:06:52] it has moved far to the north of Europe, so we must
[00:06:56] talk about that and that will happen to us, dehydration of plants and these are no longer good, who should
[00:07:00] act there, excuse me for interrupting, who should act there,
[00:07:03] I assume from local self-government units within whose jurisdiction
[00:07:06] it is, counties and states, so all together, meaning one individual
[00:07:10] cannot solve it, because there is diversity
[00:07:12] of both ownership and forests and and and land and so on,
[00:07:16] you have private ownership, you have state ownership, that is important, so we
[00:07:20] get in such situations when there is
[00:07:24] a long drought, long waves, we get a completely different class of fires
[00:07:27] and that is more class of fires a than b, so
[00:07:31] essential oils burn,
[00:07:34] Mr. Tucaković, Serbia also was not spared from large
[00:07:37] fires, it is still smoldering somewhere, Deliblatska Peščara, somehow
[00:07:41] it will remain, it seems, remembered. Stolovi also, but Deliblatska
[00:07:44] Peščara, it would be said the most, uh, you talked
[00:07:47] a lot about preventive action of some
[00:07:51] four factors, right? that we should
[00:07:54] take into account to act accordingly on those
[00:07:58] causes, so how would you rate that prevention, which of course
[00:08:01] everyone talks about as the most important when it comes to
[00:08:16] talk about four groups of factors that define, or influence
[00:08:20] the occurrence of fires themselves, where above
[00:08:23] all, the greatest importance is given to anthropogenic
[00:08:26] factors, actually 95%, perhaps even
[00:08:29] a greater percentage of fires are caused by human influence,
[00:08:32] so these factors
[00:08:35] must be taken into account when predicting
[00:08:39] the risk of fires, the index that
[00:08:42] my colleague from Croatia spoke about, I assume he meant the fire weather index,
[00:08:46] that is one uh
[00:08:50] uh index that defines the probability, i.e., the condition
[00:08:53] of combustible material and burning conditions,
[00:08:57] but it does not speak of the true
[00:09:00] danger because, as I said, someone needs to start
[00:09:03] that fire, so that very
[00:09:07] fire weather index, its values for Deliblatska
[00:09:11] Peščara were, for example... on August 5th
[00:09:14] they were very extreme, that is
[00:09:17] over 50, between 50 and 70, there is another higher
[00:09:21] threshold, where these values are above 70,
[00:09:24] uh, that somewhat explains why we had
[00:09:27] such
[00:09:29] uh such consequences and why it was so difficult to bring that
[00:09:33] same fire under control, which the members of the sector for
[00:09:37] emergency situations on the 21st, and I assume
[00:09:40] colleagues from Vojvodina Šume in... within a few hours
[00:09:43] brought under control, but this index knew, I assume, excuse me for interrupting, this
[00:09:47] index you mentioned, I was there even before that 5th,
[00:09:51] no or not, uh, it was
[00:09:54] significantly lower, on the 21st it
[00:09:56] was between 10 and 20, mhm, this,
[00:10:00] that is probably one of the reasons why they were able to
[00:10:03] so easily, that is, only a few hours to bring that fire
[00:10:07] under control, that explains the difference between
[00:10:10] July 21st
[00:10:12] and August 5th, so
[00:10:16] that, you said that one of the factors are of course climate changes,
[00:10:20] you said the amount of combustible material, man and terrain configuration. "Now, climate
[00:10:24] changes we can't really influence too much at
[00:10:27] that very moment
[00:10:29] or but we know roughly that summers are certainly getting
[00:10:33] warmer and warmer, not colder, and that index you mentioned, if it was
[00:10:37] around 20 in July, uh I assume experts know
[00:10:41] that it will logically rise during August
[00:10:45] given the weather conditions which will certainly be
[00:10:48] unfavorable, they should know and they should
[00:10:51] use those publicly available information more, first of all."
[00:10:55] because our Republic Hydrometeorological Institute since
[00:10:58] 2008 generates data on the fire weather
[00:11:01] index for 24 or 25
[00:11:05] permanent hydrometeorological stations, similar
[00:11:08] information on the fire weather index can be found on the portal
[00:11:12] of the European Information System for Forest Fires
[00:11:14] and what is another advantage,
[00:11:18] this system provides a forecast for about
[00:11:22] eight to nine days in advance, so you can.
[00:11:25] if you wish to check what the
[00:11:29] situation will be in a future period, meaning about seven or eight
[00:11:32] days in advance, to somehow prepare
[00:11:36] your resources, allocate personnel
[00:11:39] to those areas where that uh danger
[00:11:42] will certainly be higher, was that done in your opinion in an adequate
[00:11:45] way, well, I think that those information
[00:11:49] are not used in an adequate way at all and that
[00:11:52] we may have had such a situation because of that, not
[00:11:56] only now, but also in previous years, similar
[00:11:59] situations, when it comes, and as for
[00:12:02] prevention, mhm, what remains for us
[00:12:05] is to try to manage
[00:12:08] combustible material for a longer period, that's the only thing we can
[00:12:11] influence, in the sense, we can also influence people,
[00:12:15] but let's remember the situation from before, from
[00:12:18] last year when we had over 600 fires in one day, meaning
[00:12:22] there will always be a certain number of people
[00:12:26] who, no matter how much we raise awareness about the importance of forests,
[00:12:30] the danger of fires, simply
[00:12:33] that information will not reach a certain number of people or they
[00:12:37] will not process it, they will not accept it,
[00:12:40] they will behave as they behave, meaning they will light
[00:12:43] some 600 fires every day somewhere, but it will depend
[00:12:47] on this fire weather index, that is, on the state of combustible material, to be
[00:12:51] more precise, whether those
[00:12:54] 600... fires will become real fires that will
[00:12:57] then be a big challenge for the resources
[00:13:01] we have and which we can use for extinguishing. In the continuation,
[00:13:04] we will also see the story from Omiš, unfortunately from Eliblad's sandy area, and
[00:13:08] what you mentioned, that the information was not used in an adequate way,
[00:13:12] do you expect an investigation,
[00:13:25] "Since a lot has really burned, it's not negligible, I think some
[00:13:28] lessons need to be learned so that in the future, in
[00:13:32] the future, more publicly available
[00:13:35] information should be used, and information that could be made publicly available if
[00:13:39] some funds were invested uh so that
[00:13:43] these information could be produced, which firefighters, i.e., in our case,
[00:13:46] members of the emergency services could use very usefully
[00:13:50] in such a way as to save their
[00:13:53] lives, but also property and, above all,
[00:13:56] the environment, we often forget that, you didn't answer me
[00:14:00] about this responsibility, do you expect, I know it's not your
[00:14:03] purview,
[00:14:06] but do you simply expect, as someone who deals with these
[00:14:10] issues, not to start, but I
[00:14:14] deal with fire research, this I assume there are
[00:14:17] responsible parties in uh the Ministry of Internal
[00:14:21] Affairs who should conduct investigations related to the origin...
[00:14:25] But these things can be seen if they will come to that, when it comes to Bosnia and Herzegovina,
[00:14:29] Mr. Kasalo, fires have not bypassed Bosnia and Herzegovina either, Trebinje,
[00:14:32] Mostar, Livno near you, everything
[00:14:35] burned around, so
[00:14:38] how would you assess, we saw problems with
[00:14:42] equipment, outdated
[00:14:45] uh, but also nevertheless defended areas,
[00:14:48] how would you assess, here, it's already here, we hope the fire
[00:14:52] season is coming to an end for you too.
[00:15:03] fire season, although we
[00:15:06] m, are not sufficiently equipped
[00:15:09] with equipment that should benefit firefighters and fire forces and
[00:15:13] civil protection services that
[00:15:16] act against fires, the vehicle
[00:15:19] fleet, for example, is older, the average age of the vehicle fleet is over 30
[00:15:23] years old. and
[00:15:25] we don't have, how should I say, local self-governments
[00:15:29] are facing the fact that mostly only they finance
[00:15:33] mm firefighting, very little
[00:15:36] comes from higher levels of government
[00:15:39] in the future if this continues it will not
[00:15:43] be good, we will not be able to act because all the
[00:15:46] seasons are demanding. in
[00:15:49] this moment, there is also a large
[00:15:52] neighboring municipality of Kosuše and Croatian
[00:15:56] water bombers and on this occasion to value
[00:15:59] great help
[00:16:01] the government of the republic often when the population and objects are threatened. sends,
[00:16:05] also
[00:16:09] a very important
[00:16:12] role as legal
[00:16:14] entities,
[00:16:18] forest companies that
[00:16:21] manage forests should
[00:16:24] do much more regarding fire
[00:16:26] roads, clearances and so on so that
[00:16:29] mm fires can be prevented
[00:16:33] in an adequate way, also.
[00:16:36] We also have a lot of
[00:16:39] low forest areas, so that causes problems for us,
[00:16:52] and Herzegovina over 75,000 hectares have burned,
[00:16:56] it is now compared that fires destroyed an area equal
[00:16:58] to 105,000 football fields and that it will be
[00:17:02] even worse in the future, what is the problem with
[00:17:06] Bosnia and Herzegovina, who... I understand, uh,
[00:17:09] there are no dedicated firefighting aircraft in Bosnia and
[00:17:12] Herzegovina that should uh
[00:17:15] exist, but they are not there, so they
[00:17:18] say,
[00:17:21] yes, mhm, tell me, for the last two years the Canton of Herceg-Bosna,
[00:17:24] West Herzegovina and Herzegovina-Neretva
[00:17:28] Canton have signed an agreement and
[00:17:32] rented e-tractors from the Republic of Croatia which proved to be of great help
[00:17:35] in two seasons, only the airport
[00:17:39] hill in Lino is used for the operation of air
[00:17:42] tractors, where they refuel when it comes to fires in
[00:17:46] Herceg-Bosna Canton,
[00:17:49] only a minimum of 50 mm
[00:17:52] flights were made from there,
[00:17:54] but of course higher levels of government
[00:17:58] should have been preparing for a long time
[00:18:01] to acquire your own,
[00:18:04] yes, so either helicopters or what
[00:18:06] could be water bombers or perhaps for our
[00:18:10] area helicopters,
[00:18:13] because the land forces on
[00:18:16] inaccessible forest terrains
[00:18:19] uh can do very little, there are high
[00:18:22] altitudes involved mm
[00:18:26] cliffs, ravines and so on, where sometimes it's impossible to reach
[00:18:30] to operate in those
[00:18:34] areas, yes, uh... What
[00:18:36] can be read is that Bosnia and Herzegovina actually has helicopters that
[00:18:40] can be engaged in extinguishing fires, but it does not have its own specialized
[00:18:44] firefighting fleet, so let's go back to
[00:18:47] Omiš, where unfortunately there were human casualties, so a catastrophic
[00:18:50] fire hit the area of Omiš and surrounding
[00:18:54] places in mid-August 2026, Lokvar, Ogoznica,
[00:18:57] Mimice, Nemira, Staničići. Three people
[00:19:00] died, more than 40 were injured, and over
[00:19:03] 2,000 people were evacuated. Croatia and the City of Zagreb offered assistance in
[00:19:07] remedying the consequences of the fire, however, the question remains, which we
[00:19:11] also discussed, whether it could have been prevented to what extent and why the early
[00:19:15] warning and crisis management system, which cost
[00:19:18] 8.4 million euros, failed. SMS messages were not received
[00:19:22] by residents of Omiš, nor by numerous domestic, nor foreign tourists.
[00:19:26] In this battle with nature,
[00:19:29] everyone lost. As soon as night fell, hell descended
[00:19:33] upon Omiš. Strong winds with... elements of hurricane
[00:19:36] bora pushed the fire over the mountain, a dry
[00:19:40] thousand hectares burned, the fire reached the cliffs of the city,
[00:19:43] people in panic abandoned their homes, left cars on
[00:19:47] the main road, fled to the sea, darkness served
[00:19:51] the guests who told me they felt some smoke, I didn't
[00:19:54] pay attention to that because the cook always burns wood and
[00:19:57] we thought it was and at one moment I turned my head and saw
[00:20:01] a big flame, I grabbed a hose to go and put it out, but it...
[00:20:05] "It started to blow, it lifted everything, I barely saved my car,
[00:20:08] I sat at the last moment and ran away, tea, he said,
[00:20:12] look, sparks are flying, and
[00:20:16] I flew out, the house was left unlocked, I grabbed
[00:20:19] my porridge, look how I started, fire is burning on
[00:20:22] both sides, I'm driving the car, and behind the fire
[00:20:26] are catastrophic and enormous material
[00:20:29] consequences, burned houses, cars,
[00:20:32] black and broken trees that are still smoking."
[00:20:36] Firefighters who fought the blaze all night near
[00:20:40] Omiš say that when they arrived at this very specific and
[00:20:43] inaccessible terrain, the fire was already in its full-blown
[00:20:47] phase. Upon arriving at the scene, houses were already threatened, we had to fight for
[00:20:50] every house, every street, now when a fire burns
[00:20:54] 100 hectares in four hours, you yourselves
[00:20:58] know the power of that fire, the power of nature. The sports
[00:21:01] hall in Omiš was too small to accommodate all the evacuees and
[00:21:05] local residents and foreign tourists, so many
[00:21:08] people were transported by organized transport to Split.
[00:21:12] The Prime Minister of Croatia was asked why citizens
[00:21:15] were not warned through the so-called sruk system.
[00:21:19] Plenković's answer was not direct, nor did he specify
[00:21:22] whether the possibility of sending such a message was considered, he only
[00:21:26] emphasized the speed with which the fire spread. Here
[00:21:29] the situation was obviously fast in terms of wind at night,
[00:21:32] if it had been day, water bombers would have operated during the day, that is
[00:21:36] unfortunately what was missing, I think they were
[00:21:40] truly so superhumanly dedicated that what
[00:21:44] was managed to be defended is a true miracle. Omiš was also visited
[00:21:47] by the President of Croatia, Milanović first said that it was
[00:21:51] a terrible event, natural, then he
[00:21:54] wondered, maybe it's not only natural, we don't know
[00:21:58] that and remained ambiguous. Nenad
[00:22:00] Nešić, N1, Belgrade.
[00:22:04] Here, Mr. Tucaković, we saw these truly
[00:22:08] harrowing scenes, I think that really, I don't know, you say
[00:22:12] in 15 years you haven't seen something like this,
[00:22:15] uh, there were devastating fires
[00:22:19] in 2017
[00:22:22] and 2012, I think, some years are mentioned where a lot
[00:22:26] uh uh burned, but something like
[00:22:30] you yourself said, you said let's talk a little about this
[00:22:33] notification system where you said that
[00:22:37] maybe it shouldn't have been, what exactly did you mean, here we see
[00:22:40] Prime Minister Plenković didn't comment much,
[00:22:43] what is actually going on, is it good, is it not good, what, well
[00:22:47] look, I...
[00:22:50] So I can responsibly claim that only firefighters, that is, the idiot who
[00:22:53] my colleagues command, so colleague Pešić obviously
[00:22:56] and colleague county commander Kovačević, I arrived there an
[00:23:00] hour after the fire started and I was
[00:23:03] in the fire all night, I was even in danger of my life
[00:23:07] twice, I know very well what the firefighters were doing
[00:23:10] there, they were defending house by house, actually
[00:23:13] and they only defended and evacuated and did everything they could
[00:23:17] so that nothing would happen to anyone. So, here I must really
[00:23:21] thank the police, civil protection who really immediately joined
[00:23:24] and helped people, all tourists in this
[00:23:28] area, so, I just said whether
[00:23:31] to activate the early warning system, so here
[00:23:35] it is about a very uh rapid fire, so
[00:23:38] a lightning-fast one that developed very quickly, so there was a hurricane-force
[00:23:41] bora, so the fire was spreading, we had
[00:23:45] conditions conducive to fire, so it was about dehydration
[00:23:48] of plants, so everything. So, it was an inaccessible terrain,
[00:23:52] it was a terrain with narrow streets, so
[00:23:55] everything had to be done quickly and I can truly say that the firefighters did their
[00:23:59] job admirably, they really gave their all, as did the services that
[00:24:03] were there, so I can say that very quickly at first
[00:24:07] over 200 people were accommodated and organized in the hall, then
[00:24:10] some people were transferred further to Split, so
[00:24:14] uh we also saw we saw in
[00:24:16] the report a very quick organization by both the city and the county, everything. that
[00:24:20] was found, who the people were there, but also the citizens themselves who
[00:24:24] self-organized, watering around, so a large number
[00:24:27] of houses were saved, we must talk about that, so how many houses and
[00:24:31] saved, how many lives, did it perhaps happen that we allowed
[00:24:34] evacuation from hotel Ruskamen, so
[00:24:37] we left people in the hotel, don't go outside
[00:24:41] with two vehicles we saved that hotel, so no one was
[00:24:44] injured there, so we did the same thing on
[00:24:47] the area of Brač when the commander made... the decision everyone to
[00:24:51] the hotel, close the hotel, well I can say, it really
[00:24:54] was a very well done operation, but unfortunately what
[00:24:58] I can say is that there were fatalities, that's the worst thing that
[00:25:01] can happen to a person, to people,
[00:25:05] we saw all of that in the report, the dedication of firefighters is undeniable in
[00:25:09] both cases and in all others, we see that in footage
[00:25:12] across Croatia and of course Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, that's absolutely not
[00:25:16] in question, what I asked you about and what you insisted on quite a bit. These
[00:25:20] preventions, and you haven't quite specifically answered my question
[00:25:23] about this notification system via SMS, just like we get
[00:25:27] notifications that there will be some unpleasant
[00:25:30] I already spoke about it in the first part of my answers, so when we talk about
[00:25:34] an early warning system, we are talking about an early
[00:25:37] warning system, it failed how much
[00:25:40] how many times, let's not say that, I disagree,
[00:25:43] I disagree with you, so we are talking about an early
[00:25:47] warning system, so here we are talking... about a fire that
[00:25:51] started at lightning speed and it was necessary to approach it, in that sense
[00:25:54] what would have happened if 500 people from this hotel had gone out
[00:25:58] to the fire, what would have happened, what would have happened,
[00:26:02] that it was a large
[00:26:06] event that was already caused and was uh on
[00:26:10] the ground in a very, very large area, so it's like
[00:26:13] having an explosion, you understand, in that sense
[00:26:16] the assessment was that if an SMS was sent there would be greater panic and more
[00:26:20] victims, more victims, that was the assessment at that moment
[00:26:24] now that prevention, you spoke about it quite a bit and that's exactly what
[00:26:27] we said, more prevention less uh more
[00:26:31] prevention less operational" yes now in this specific case, what
[00:26:34] should have been more prevention or what could have been, was it even
[00:26:38] possible, we can talk about what should have been done in specific cases, however
[00:26:42] we must generally talk about all areas of all local and
[00:26:46] regional self-governments, so we are talking about the construction of roads,
[00:26:49] the passability of roads, we are talking about the arrangement of forest
[00:26:53] roads, the arrangement of forest areas, we have one wonderful
[00:26:56] example, so uh
[00:26:58] the area of the city of Skradin, when we made a projection.
[00:27:02] "what would happen, what will happen, how big is the fire risk
[00:27:06] if we don't clear the areas and how big it is when we clear the areas and that
[00:27:09] risk decreases, so we have everything in digital form and everything can
[00:27:13] be checked, so we, that was done where only from the area of the city
[00:27:17] of Skradin uh and over
[00:27:20] 5,000 uh cubic meters of timber
[00:27:24] mass were extracted, mhm, you know what that is, now we have roads,
[00:27:27] a road, so the national park was involved, Croatian forests uh
[00:27:30] firefighters." commander of Šibenik-Knin
[00:27:34] County, so everyone was involved and it showed that
[00:27:37] it's possible, so we need to continue like that, mhm, well, that's one of
[00:27:41] the types of prevention, when it comes to Serbia, we'll soon watch
[00:27:44] a report from Deliblatska peščara which we talked about the most,
[00:27:47] Mr. Milanović, just to clarify, does Serbia have
[00:27:51] this, I'm insisting on this SMS notification, we heard
[00:27:55] why this system was not activated at this moment, the assessment was
[00:27:58] such, uh, Serbia has notifications when there are some disasters.
[00:28:02] that are coming weather disasters, whether they are
[00:28:06] thunderstorms or winds, do we also have such a system for
[00:28:09] warning for fires?
[00:28:13] Well, I think it's a unified system, that
[00:28:16] this just depends on what kind of danger it is, just
[00:28:20] as they warn us about extreme weather conditions such as
[00:28:23] storms, they should warn us if
[00:28:27] there is a high risk of fire in a certain
[00:28:30] in a certain territory. If
[00:28:33] if I am well informed well
[00:28:36] to tell you the truth, I don't have such information whether such a system
[00:28:40] was launched or whether it should have been launched considering
[00:28:43] that, and if you mean Deliblatska Peščara, considering that
[00:28:47] the sand dunes were burning now yes, but at some
[00:28:49] moments it had already approached populated areas,
[00:28:53] we also saw that there were problems there, no it wasn't, several populated
[00:28:56] areas were threatened, but at that moment, as far as I
[00:29:00] know, members of the sector for... situations were there, so they directly
[00:29:04] carried out the evacuation of people from
[00:29:07] Šušara, I don't know about other places,
[00:29:11] let's see what it really looked like in Deliblatska peščara,
[00:29:13] the responsibility that Serbia as a state and society
[00:29:17] has fallen on, and the consequences are suffered by both plant and animal life, which will need
[00:29:20] several decades to recover, as they say. Deliblatska
[00:29:24] Peščara, known to experts and the wider public as an area highly susceptible to
[00:29:28] fires. Why did the early warning prevention system then
[00:29:31] fail? The public, demanding an investigation into responsibility, also
[00:29:35] asks who benefited and why, especially if just
[00:29:38] a few days after suspicions about the construction of wind farms in the burned
[00:29:42] Deliblatska Peščara were declared disinformation, lies,
[00:29:46] the Serbian parliament quietly passed amendments to the law that allow
[00:29:49] exactly that, opening the way for similar changes in land use
[00:29:53] affected by some of the 60 large fires this
[00:29:56] season.
[00:29:59] How did Deliblatska Peščara become Deliblatska?
[00:30:02] Those who tried to answer this question
[00:30:06] could face jail time for spreading panic, no need
[00:30:09] to
[00:30:13] use
[00:30:16] through political, through alleged political
[00:30:19] struggle
[00:30:21] falsehoods so that someone would reap
[00:30:25] certain political
[00:30:27] points, that is simply not true, that is
[00:30:31] false." "It's ultimately shameful, it's
[00:30:35] hypocritical. Who lied on August 7th when the same
[00:30:39] minister stated that Serbia did not need
[00:30:42] help. This was the
[00:30:45] fire on August 5th,
[00:30:47] look. This was the
[00:30:51] fire on August 7th, he
[00:30:54] states that things are under control, already then you
[00:30:58] should have activated..."