As it is known forest fires are rarely restricted to territory of one district or region. Apart from this the forest fires cause serious ecological, social and economic problems. The constant change of the climate and global warming as well as the human activities increase the risk of forest fires which on its turn leads to decreasing of the forestation and increasing of the pollution of the environment. The fires affect the protective areas which are homes of rare animals and plants. This is causing serious damage to the flora and fauna. This puts the question in front of the fire services in the cross border region: How to meet the needs for better exchange of the information about the possible risks, transnational intervention and assistance and common activities for prevention ? For this purpose the project was created. Training activities in the field of prevention and mitigation of the consequences were targeted to the young people in the cross border area. We elaborated a Guide on Fire Safety and Civil Protection with common methods for preparing the youths for proper reaction in case of a different disaster. The guide includes prevention measures, activities which teach children how to act in case of an emergency and main works for mitigation and restriction of the consequences of all types of disasters that can happen in the cross border area. As a result, 200 children from both countries passed a training for increasing their abilities in self- preservation, prevention and reaction in forest fires and other disasters.
On the other side the new equipment within the project (three vehicles for forest fires, 36 pcs. of personal equipment for forest fires and one firefighting vehicle) ensures faster and more effective approach in extinguishing the forest fires in the cross-border area.
The results of this project increased the cross-border cooperation between the Regional Directorate Fire Safety and Civil Protection and Edirne Municipality in the field of forest fires. The partners achieved two main goals. The first one is increasing prevention preparedness among the young people in the cross-border region by using common methods against forest fires.
The second goal is improving the preparedness of the responsible institutions in the cross- border region for reaction in case of forest fires and for fast limitation/mitigation of the damages so that less territory to be affected and less harms to be caused.
