Croatia: N1 Croatia

20260920 19:00 UTC · 00:30:59 · 520 transcript segments · GDELT Visual Explorer · plain-text transcript · Event Map

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Transcript

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00:00:21Good evening, this is another red line, I am Marina Fratucan, Omiš,
00:00:25Brač, Deliblatska Peščara, Stolovi, the area of Trebinje and Mostar,
00:00:28whether the fires could have been prevented or at least brought under control faster,
00:00:32whether the reaction of all in the chain of fire extinguishing in the countries
00:00:36of the region was timely, how much the countries of the region are working on fire prevention,
00:00:39whether firefighters have adequate equipment, whether
00:00:42helicopters could have been used earlier and citizens warned earlier,
00:00:46when will we view fires as a consequence whose
00:00:49causes should be addressed and finally, what about the burnt
00:00:53areas whose rehabilitation sometimes lasts for several decades,
00:00:57more prevention, less operation, about fires in the countries.
00:01:00of the region on the red line tonight, Slobodan Milanović, professor at the Faculty of Forestry
00:01:04in Belgrade, Slavko Tucaković, chief fire commander in Croatia,
00:01:08and Božidar Kasalo, head of civil
00:01:15of course, during the past month and
00:01:18more than a month, actually, almost two. September is the month,
00:01:22it should somehow calm down on the ground. We hope that is the case.
00:01:26However, this past weekend there were
00:01:29active fires, primarily in Croatia on Brač, Mr.
00:01:32Tucaković, that is one of the bigger fires
00:01:35besides the one that was, of course, in Omiš which claimed human
00:01:39lives, as far as I understand, 14%
00:01:42of Brač was burned, you correct me if that is
00:01:45not true, a large number of firefighters, around 200, as
00:01:49the data shows, from the wider area, dozens
00:01:51of vehicles, water bombers and so
00:01:54on, I mentioned prevention in the introduction,
00:01:57you also spoke about that. What would
00:02:01you say now, at the end of September and
00:02:05after a really turbulent fire season in
00:02:08Croatia, what is the situation, who really failed,
00:02:19the fire was localized in the area of Brač, we can state that according
00:02:23to preliminary estimates, we have about 5,000 hectares
00:02:26of burned area, so dry grass, low vegetation.
00:02:30some pine forest, so
00:02:33a large number of firefighters, so who came to
00:02:37extinguish this fire, so first of all forces from the island of Brač were mobilized,
00:02:41then Split-Dalmatia County which were immediately introduced, and
00:02:44at the same time forces were mobilized
00:02:46from the entire coast, from Primorsko-Goranska, Istrian and
00:02:50all the way to Dubrovnik-Neretva, Šibenik, Zadar, so all the forces
00:02:54that were needed at that moment, uh,
00:02:57went to Brač, so to fight with this. uh fire, so,
00:03:01besides that fire on Brač, which was, which was really
00:03:05big, fierce, let's remember the fire near Omiš which was
00:03:08devastating, I would call it, I don't know, in my 15
00:03:12years of career as chief fire commander, I haven't experienced
00:03:16such a fire, something so terrible, and when we talk about
00:03:19the color of the flame itself, it was not yellow, nor orange, nor
00:03:23red, but purple, which spread really due to strong
00:03:27winds, unfortunately there were
00:03:30fatalities, so there are still people in
00:03:34the hospital in serious condition, truly sincere condolences to all
00:03:38those who suffered here in
00:03:41the fire, so a great material damage that
00:03:44occurred, so to people, part of the houses
00:03:47burned or scorched, so on agricultural and
00:03:50objects, but also vineyards and everything that happened, that is
00:03:53an irreparable damage when a fire occurs, so not only
00:03:57in the sense that we talk about... about direct damage, but
00:04:01that long-term damage, so there is no more forest, no more life,
00:04:04no more plants, no more animal world and everything
00:04:08that happened and the worst thing that will happen now are
00:04:12floods or soil erosion that will occur and will actually
00:04:15cause one uh even worse damage
00:04:19that could have been, so something worst that can happen, so it is
00:04:23now very necessary to react very quickly, so both about reforestation
00:04:26and about removing, so trees, we are now here in the area.
00:04:30Milna found what burned ten years ago, those trees were still there,
00:04:34they are still there, so they burned again, you know, no one removed them and so on and
00:04:38so, so there is a lot to establish and we can talk about that for a long, long
00:04:41time, whether prevention failed, well, look,
00:04:45prevention, I've been talking about it for a long time and we will continue to talk about it this
00:04:48year, so we have already had two meetings this year, we talked about
00:04:52what everyone should do,
00:04:55how, but now we will push it even more because
00:04:58prevention is actually the key to success. Exactly this more prevention,
00:05:02less operation is therefore the key to success, so everything
00:05:05is overgrown, everything is neglected, there are no
00:05:07roads, as we saw in the area of Omiš when there was a fire, very
00:05:11few roads. The roads are narrow, so they need to be opened, they need
00:05:15to be made, but not only that, they also need to be maintained, it is not enough to build a road
00:05:19if we are not going to support it and so on, so in that
00:05:22prevention we can talk a lot and that is something
00:05:26that we all need to talk about, so about early detection, we invested a lot
00:05:29in early detection, so fires, 280 cameras, it all
00:05:33monitors, there are people, there are patrols and so on, did that
00:05:37fail, we know that the notification system in Omiš failed,
00:05:40uh, we... heard an SMS didn't arrive, uh
00:05:44well, I don't know if an SMS should have been sent or not, we can talk
00:05:47about that when it comes to such rapid events that spread
00:05:51at high speed, so that early
00:05:54warning system, for early warning, it has the very name, so as long as we have time,
00:05:58however, here when you have a uh lightning
00:06:01spread of fire, so what would happen, so one example
00:06:04we had at the Hotel Rus Kamen when we locked people in the hotel, we didn't
00:06:08let them out, we actually saved a large number of lives and the same thing
00:06:12was done in the Milen area, when we were in the area
00:06:16of the Gava Hotel, a lot of people were accommodated, they were in the hotel, they were not
00:06:19allowed to go out until the fire passed, the fire passed very quickly, so that is a matter
00:06:23of the commander's decision on the ground,
00:06:26we will continue to talk about this prevention you touched upon, so we can also talk
00:06:30about what that prevention means with these upcoming landslides,
00:06:34rains that you announced, so
00:06:38uh a very high fire hazard index, dried plants,
00:06:42so... is something that is certainly known and needs to be acted upon, so,
00:06:45to act now, because we must act now for what will happen to us
00:06:49in the next four to five years, the hazard index is very high
00:06:52it has moved far to the north of Europe, so we must
00:06:56talk about that and that will happen to us, dehydration of plants and these are no longer good, who should
00:07:00act there, excuse me for interrupting, who should act there,
00:07:03I assume from local self-government units within whose jurisdiction
00:07:06it is, counties and states, so all together, meaning one individual
00:07:10cannot solve it, because there is diversity
00:07:12of both ownership and forests and and and land and so on,
00:07:16you have private ownership, you have state ownership, that is important, so we
00:07:20get in such situations when there is
00:07:24a long drought, long waves, we get a completely different class of fires
00:07:27and that is more class of fires a than b, so
00:07:31essential oils burn,
00:07:34Mr. Tucaković, Serbia also was not spared from large
00:07:37fires, it is still smoldering somewhere, Deliblatska Peščara, somehow
00:07:41it will remain, it seems, remembered. Stolovi also, but Deliblatska
00:07:44Peščara, it would be said the most, uh, you talked
00:07:47a lot about preventive action of some
00:07:51four factors, right? that we should
00:07:54take into account to act accordingly on those
00:07:58causes, so how would you rate that prevention, which of course
00:08:01everyone talks about as the most important when it comes to
00:08:16talk about four groups of factors that define, or influence
00:08:20the occurrence of fires themselves, where above
00:08:23all, the greatest importance is given to anthropogenic
00:08:26factors, actually 95%, perhaps even
00:08:29a greater percentage of fires are caused by human influence,
00:08:32so these factors
00:08:35must be taken into account when predicting
00:08:39the risk of fires, the index that
00:08:42my colleague from Croatia spoke about, I assume he meant the fire weather index,
00:08:46that is one uh
00:08:50uh index that defines the probability, i.e., the condition
00:08:53of combustible material and burning conditions,
00:08:57but it does not speak of the true
00:09:00danger because, as I said, someone needs to start
00:09:03that fire, so that very
00:09:07fire weather index, its values for Deliblatska
00:09:11Peščara were, for example... on August 5th
00:09:14they were very extreme, that is
00:09:17over 50, between 50 and 70, there is another higher
00:09:21threshold, where these values are above 70,
00:09:24uh, that somewhat explains why we had
00:09:27such
00:09:29uh such consequences and why it was so difficult to bring that
00:09:33same fire under control, which the members of the sector for
00:09:37emergency situations on the 21st, and I assume
00:09:40colleagues from Vojvodina Šume in... within a few hours
00:09:43brought under control, but this index knew, I assume, excuse me for interrupting, this
00:09:47index you mentioned, I was there even before that 5th,
00:09:51no or not, uh, it was
00:09:54significantly lower, on the 21st it
00:09:56was between 10 and 20, mhm, this,
00:10:00that is probably one of the reasons why they were able to
00:10:03so easily, that is, only a few hours to bring that fire
00:10:07under control, that explains the difference between
00:10:10July 21st
00:10:12and August 5th, so
00:10:16that, you said that one of the factors are of course climate changes,
00:10:20you said the amount of combustible material, man and terrain configuration. "Now, climate
00:10:24changes we can't really influence too much at
00:10:27that very moment
00:10:29or but we know roughly that summers are certainly getting
00:10:33warmer and warmer, not colder, and that index you mentioned, if it was
00:10:37around 20 in July, uh I assume experts know
00:10:41that it will logically rise during August
00:10:45given the weather conditions which will certainly be
00:10:48unfavorable, they should know and they should
00:10:51use those publicly available information more, first of all."
00:10:55because our Republic Hydrometeorological Institute since
00:10:582008 generates data on the fire weather
00:11:01index for 24 or 25
00:11:05permanent hydrometeorological stations, similar
00:11:08information on the fire weather index can be found on the portal
00:11:12of the European Information System for Forest Fires
00:11:14and what is another advantage,
00:11:18this system provides a forecast for about
00:11:22eight to nine days in advance, so you can.
00:11:25if you wish to check what the
00:11:29situation will be in a future period, meaning about seven or eight
00:11:32days in advance, to somehow prepare
00:11:36your resources, allocate personnel
00:11:39to those areas where that uh danger
00:11:42will certainly be higher, was that done in your opinion in an adequate
00:11:45way, well, I think that those information
00:11:49are not used in an adequate way at all and that
00:11:52we may have had such a situation because of that, not
00:11:56only now, but also in previous years, similar
00:11:59situations, when it comes, and as for
00:12:02prevention, mhm, what remains for us
00:12:05is to try to manage
00:12:08combustible material for a longer period, that's the only thing we can
00:12:11influence, in the sense, we can also influence people,
00:12:15but let's remember the situation from before, from
00:12:18last year when we had over 600 fires in one day, meaning
00:12:22there will always be a certain number of people
00:12:26who, no matter how much we raise awareness about the importance of forests,
00:12:30the danger of fires, simply
00:12:33that information will not reach a certain number of people or they
00:12:37will not process it, they will not accept it,
00:12:40they will behave as they behave, meaning they will light
00:12:43some 600 fires every day somewhere, but it will depend
00:12:47on this fire weather index, that is, on the state of combustible material, to be
00:12:51more precise, whether those
00:12:54600... fires will become real fires that will
00:12:57then be a big challenge for the resources
00:13:01we have and which we can use for extinguishing. In the continuation,
00:13:04we will also see the story from Omiš, unfortunately from Eliblad's sandy area, and
00:13:08what you mentioned, that the information was not used in an adequate way,
00:13:12do you expect an investigation,
00:13:25"Since a lot has really burned, it's not negligible, I think some
00:13:28lessons need to be learned so that in the future, in
00:13:32the future, more publicly available
00:13:35information should be used, and information that could be made publicly available if
00:13:39some funds were invested uh so that
00:13:43these information could be produced, which firefighters, i.e., in our case,
00:13:46members of the emergency services could use very usefully
00:13:50in such a way as to save their
00:13:53lives, but also property and, above all,
00:13:56the environment, we often forget that, you didn't answer me
00:14:00about this responsibility, do you expect, I know it's not your
00:14:03purview,
00:14:06but do you simply expect, as someone who deals with these
00:14:10issues, not to start, but I
00:14:14deal with fire research, this I assume there are
00:14:17responsible parties in uh the Ministry of Internal
00:14:21Affairs who should conduct investigations related to the origin...
00:14:25But these things can be seen if they will come to that, when it comes to Bosnia and Herzegovina,
00:14:29Mr. Kasalo, fires have not bypassed Bosnia and Herzegovina either, Trebinje,
00:14:32Mostar, Livno near you, everything
00:14:35burned around, so
00:14:38how would you assess, we saw problems with
00:14:42equipment, outdated
00:14:45uh, but also nevertheless defended areas,
00:14:48how would you assess, here, it's already here, we hope the fire
00:14:52season is coming to an end for you too.
00:15:03fire season, although we
00:15:06m, are not sufficiently equipped
00:15:09with equipment that should benefit firefighters and fire forces and
00:15:13civil protection services that
00:15:16act against fires, the vehicle
00:15:19fleet, for example, is older, the average age of the vehicle fleet is over 30
00:15:23years old. and
00:15:25we don't have, how should I say, local self-governments
00:15:29are facing the fact that mostly only they finance
00:15:33mm firefighting, very little
00:15:36comes from higher levels of government
00:15:39in the future if this continues it will not
00:15:43be good, we will not be able to act because all the
00:15:46seasons are demanding. in
00:15:49this moment, there is also a large
00:15:52neighboring municipality of Kosuše and Croatian
00:15:56water bombers and on this occasion to value
00:15:59great help
00:16:01the government of the republic often when the population and objects are threatened. sends,
00:16:05also
00:16:09a very important
00:16:12role as legal
00:16:14entities,
00:16:18forest companies that
00:16:21manage forests should
00:16:24do much more regarding fire
00:16:26roads, clearances and so on so that
00:16:29mm fires can be prevented
00:16:33in an adequate way, also.
00:16:36We also have a lot of
00:16:39low forest areas, so that causes problems for us,
00:16:52and Herzegovina over 75,000 hectares have burned,
00:16:56it is now compared that fires destroyed an area equal
00:16:58to 105,000 football fields and that it will be
00:17:02even worse in the future, what is the problem with
00:17:06Bosnia and Herzegovina, who... I understand, uh,
00:17:09there are no dedicated firefighting aircraft in Bosnia and
00:17:12Herzegovina that should uh
00:17:15exist, but they are not there, so they
00:17:18say,
00:17:21yes, mhm, tell me, for the last two years the Canton of Herceg-Bosna,
00:17:24West Herzegovina and Herzegovina-Neretva
00:17:28Canton have signed an agreement and
00:17:32rented e-tractors from the Republic of Croatia which proved to be of great help
00:17:35in two seasons, only the airport
00:17:39hill in Lino is used for the operation of air
00:17:42tractors, where they refuel when it comes to fires in
00:17:46Herceg-Bosna Canton,
00:17:49only a minimum of 50 mm
00:17:52flights were made from there,
00:17:54but of course higher levels of government
00:17:58should have been preparing for a long time
00:18:01to acquire your own,
00:18:04yes, so either helicopters or what
00:18:06could be water bombers or perhaps for our
00:18:10area helicopters,
00:18:13because the land forces on
00:18:16inaccessible forest terrains
00:18:19uh can do very little, there are high
00:18:22altitudes involved mm
00:18:26cliffs, ravines and so on, where sometimes it's impossible to reach
00:18:30to operate in those
00:18:34areas, yes, uh... What
00:18:36can be read is that Bosnia and Herzegovina actually has helicopters that
00:18:40can be engaged in extinguishing fires, but it does not have its own specialized
00:18:44firefighting fleet, so let's go back to
00:18:47Omiš, where unfortunately there were human casualties, so a catastrophic
00:18:50fire hit the area of Omiš and surrounding
00:18:54places in mid-August 2026, Lokvar, Ogoznica,
00:18:57Mimice, Nemira, Staničići. Three people
00:19:00died, more than 40 were injured, and over
00:19:032,000 people were evacuated. Croatia and the City of Zagreb offered assistance in
00:19:07remedying the consequences of the fire, however, the question remains, which we
00:19:11also discussed, whether it could have been prevented to what extent and why the early
00:19:15warning and crisis management system, which cost
00:19:188.4 million euros, failed. SMS messages were not received
00:19:22by residents of Omiš, nor by numerous domestic, nor foreign tourists.
00:19:26In this battle with nature,
00:19:29everyone lost. As soon as night fell, hell descended
00:19:33upon Omiš. Strong winds with... elements of hurricane
00:19:36bora pushed the fire over the mountain, a dry
00:19:40thousand hectares burned, the fire reached the cliffs of the city,
00:19:43people in panic abandoned their homes, left cars on
00:19:47the main road, fled to the sea, darkness served
00:19:51the guests who told me they felt some smoke, I didn't
00:19:54pay attention to that because the cook always burns wood and
00:19:57we thought it was and at one moment I turned my head and saw
00:20:01a 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,
00:20:08I sat at the last moment and ran away, tea, he said,
00:20:12look, sparks are flying, and
00:20:16I flew out, the house was left unlocked, I grabbed
00:20:19my porridge, look how I started, fire is burning on
00:20:22both sides, I'm driving the car, and behind the fire
00:20:26are catastrophic and enormous material
00:20:29consequences, burned houses, cars,
00:20:32black and broken trees that are still smoking."
00:20:36Firefighters who fought the blaze all night near
00:20:40Omiš say that when they arrived at this very specific and
00:20:43inaccessible terrain, the fire was already in its full-blown
00:20:47phase. Upon arriving at the scene, houses were already threatened, we had to fight for
00:20:50every house, every street, now when a fire burns
00:20:54100 hectares in four hours, you yourselves
00:20:58know the power of that fire, the power of nature. The sports
00:21:01hall in Omiš was too small to accommodate all the evacuees and
00:21:05local residents and foreign tourists, so many
00:21:08people were transported by organized transport to Split.
00:21:12The Prime Minister of Croatia was asked why citizens
00:21:15were not warned through the so-called sruk system.
00:21:19Plenković's answer was not direct, nor did he specify
00:21:22whether the possibility of sending such a message was considered, he only
00:21:26emphasized the speed with which the fire spread. Here
00:21:29the situation was obviously fast in terms of wind at night,
00:21:32if it had been day, water bombers would have operated during the day, that is
00:21:36unfortunately what was missing, I think they were
00:21:40truly so superhumanly dedicated that what
00:21:44was managed to be defended is a true miracle. Omiš was also visited
00:21:47by the President of Croatia, Milanović first said that it was
00:21:51a terrible event, natural, then he
00:21:54wondered, maybe it's not only natural, we don't know
00:21:58that and remained ambiguous. Nenad
00:22:00Nešić, N1, Belgrade.
00:22:04Here, Mr. Tucaković, we saw these truly
00:22:08harrowing scenes, I think that really, I don't know, you say
00:22:12in 15 years you haven't seen something like this,
00:22:15uh, there were devastating fires
00:22:19in 2017
00:22:22and 2012, I think, some years are mentioned where a lot
00:22:26uh uh burned, but something like
00:22:30you yourself said, you said let's talk a little about this
00:22:33notification system where you said that
00:22:37maybe it shouldn't have been, what exactly did you mean, here we see
00:22:40Prime Minister Plenković didn't comment much,
00:22:43what is actually going on, is it good, is it not good, what, well
00:22:47look, I...
00:22:50So I can responsibly claim that only firefighters, that is, the idiot who
00:22:53my colleagues command, so colleague Pešić obviously
00:22:56and colleague county commander Kovačević, I arrived there an
00:23:00hour after the fire started and I was
00:23:03in the fire all night, I was even in danger of my life
00:23:07twice, I know very well what the firefighters were doing
00:23:10there, they were defending house by house, actually
00:23:13and they only defended and evacuated and did everything they could
00:23:17so that nothing would happen to anyone. So, here I must really
00:23:21thank the police, civil protection who really immediately joined
00:23:24and helped people, all tourists in this
00:23:28area, so, I just said whether
00:23:31to activate the early warning system, so here
00:23:35it is about a very uh rapid fire, so
00:23:38a lightning-fast one that developed very quickly, so there was a hurricane-force
00:23:41bora, so the fire was spreading, we had
00:23:45conditions conducive to fire, so it was about dehydration
00:23:48of plants, so everything. So, it was an inaccessible terrain,
00:23:52it was a terrain with narrow streets, so
00:23:55everything had to be done quickly and I can truly say that the firefighters did their
00:23:59job admirably, they really gave their all, as did the services that
00:24:03were there, so I can say that very quickly at first
00:24:07over 200 people were accommodated and organized in the hall, then
00:24:10some people were transferred further to Split, so
00:24:14uh we also saw we saw in
00:24:16the report a very quick organization by both the city and the county, everything. that
00:24:20was found, who the people were there, but also the citizens themselves who
00:24:24self-organized, watering around, so a large number
00:24:27of houses were saved, we must talk about that, so how many houses and
00:24:31saved, how many lives, did it perhaps happen that we allowed
00:24:34evacuation from hotel Ruskamen, so
00:24:37we left people in the hotel, don't go outside
00:24:41with two vehicles we saved that hotel, so no one was
00:24:44injured there, so we did the same thing on
00:24:47the area of Brač when the commander made... the decision everyone to
00:24:51the hotel, close the hotel, well I can say, it really
00:24:54was a very well done operation, but unfortunately what
00:24:58I can say is that there were fatalities, that's the worst thing that
00:25:01can happen to a person, to people,
00:25:05we saw all of that in the report, the dedication of firefighters is undeniable in
00:25:09both cases and in all others, we see that in footage
00:25:12across Croatia and of course Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, that's absolutely not
00:25:16in question, what I asked you about and what you insisted on quite a bit. These
00:25:20preventions, and you haven't quite specifically answered my question
00:25:23about this notification system via SMS, just like we get
00:25:27notifications that there will be some unpleasant
00:25:30I already spoke about it in the first part of my answers, so when we talk about
00:25:34an early warning system, we are talking about an early
00:25:37warning system, it failed how much
00:25:40how many times, let's not say that, I disagree,
00:25:43I disagree with you, so we are talking about an early
00:25:47warning system, so here we are talking... about a fire that
00:25:51started at lightning speed and it was necessary to approach it, in that sense
00:25:54what would have happened if 500 people from this hotel had gone out
00:25:58to the fire, what would have happened, what would have happened,
00:26:02that it was a large
00:26:06event that was already caused and was uh on
00:26:10the ground in a very, very large area, so it's like
00:26:13having an explosion, you understand, in that sense
00:26:16the assessment was that if an SMS was sent there would be greater panic and more
00:26:20victims, more victims, that was the assessment at that moment
00:26:24now that prevention, you spoke about it quite a bit and that's exactly what
00:26:27we said, more prevention less uh more
00:26:31prevention less operational" yes now in this specific case, what
00:26:34should have been more prevention or what could have been, was it even
00:26:38possible, we can talk about what should have been done in specific cases, however
00:26:42we must generally talk about all areas of all local and
00:26:46regional self-governments, so we are talking about the construction of roads,
00:26:49the passability of roads, we are talking about the arrangement of forest
00:26:53roads, the arrangement of forest areas, we have one wonderful
00:26:56example, so uh
00:26:58the 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
00:27:06if we don't clear the areas and how big it is when we clear the areas and that
00:27:09risk decreases, so we have everything in digital form and everything can
00:27:13be checked, so we, that was done where only from the area of the city
00:27:17of Skradin uh and over
00:27:205,000 uh cubic meters of timber
00:27:24mass were extracted, mhm, you know what that is, now we have roads,
00:27:27a road, so the national park was involved, Croatian forests uh
00:27:30firefighters." commander of Šibenik-Knin
00:27:34County, so everyone was involved and it showed that
00:27:37it's possible, so we need to continue like that, mhm, well, that's one of
00:27:41the types of prevention, when it comes to Serbia, we'll soon watch
00:27:44a report from Deliblatska peščara which we talked about the most,
00:27:47Mr. Milanović, just to clarify, does Serbia have
00:27:51this, I'm insisting on this SMS notification, we heard
00:27:55why this system was not activated at this moment, the assessment was
00:27:58such, uh, Serbia has notifications when there are some disasters.
00:28:02that are coming weather disasters, whether they are
00:28:06thunderstorms or winds, do we also have such a system for
00:28:09warning for fires?
00:28:13Well, I think it's a unified system, that
00:28:16this just depends on what kind of danger it is, just
00:28:20as they warn us about extreme weather conditions such as
00:28:23storms, they should warn us if
00:28:27there is a high risk of fire in a certain
00:28:30in a certain territory. If
00:28:33if I am well informed well
00:28:36to tell you the truth, I don't have such information whether such a system
00:28:40was launched or whether it should have been launched considering
00:28:43that, and if you mean Deliblatska Peščara, considering that
00:28:47the sand dunes were burning now yes, but at some
00:28:49moments it had already approached populated areas,
00:28:53we also saw that there were problems there, no it wasn't, several populated
00:28:56areas were threatened, but at that moment, as far as I
00:29:00know, members of the sector for... situations were there, so they directly
00:29:04carried out the evacuation of people from
00:29:07Šušara, I don't know about other places,
00:29:11let's see what it really looked like in Deliblatska peščara,
00:29:13the responsibility that Serbia as a state and society
00:29:17has fallen on, and the consequences are suffered by both plant and animal life, which will need
00:29:20several decades to recover, as they say. Deliblatska
00:29:24Peščara, known to experts and the wider public as an area highly susceptible to
00:29:28fires. Why did the early warning prevention system then
00:29:31fail? The public, demanding an investigation into responsibility, also
00:29:35asks who benefited and why, especially if just
00:29:38a few days after suspicions about the construction of wind farms in the burned
00:29:42Deliblatska Peščara were declared disinformation, lies,
00:29:46the Serbian parliament quietly passed amendments to the law that allow
00:29:49exactly that, opening the way for similar changes in land use
00:29:53affected by some of the 60 large fires this
00:29:56season.
00:29:59How did Deliblatska Peščara become Deliblatska?
00:30:02Those who tried to answer this question
00:30:06could face jail time for spreading panic, no need
00:30:09to
00:30:13use
00:30:16through political, through alleged political
00:30:19struggle
00:30:21falsehoods so that someone would reap
00:30:25certain political
00:30:27points, that is simply not true, that is
00:30:31false." "It's ultimately shameful, it's
00:30:35hypocritical. Who lied on August 7th when the same
00:30:39minister stated that Serbia did not need
00:30:42help. This was the
00:30:45fire on August 5th,
00:30:47look. This was the
00:30:51fire on August 7th, he
00:30:54states that things are under control, already then you
00:30:58should have activated..."
Data courtesy of The GDELT Project (gdeltproject.org), from the Internet Archive TV News Archive. Film strip and transcript are GDELT's, rehosted here under their terms of use, which permit it with this citation.