It has been announced that starting on the 1st of June, 700 fire-fighting personnel belonging to INFOCA will begin work protecting Granada woodlands from forest fires.

Junta Delegate for Granada, Antonio Granados, said that the INFOCA service has a budget of 257-million euros this year to cover the needs for the whole of Andalucía.

Granada has four Centros de Defensa Forestal: La Resinera, Puerto Lobo, Sierra Nevada and Hernán-Valle; this last one was inaugurated in March with a budget of 7.1m euros.

To this you can add a Subcentro de Defensa Forestal in Huéscar, which has a budget of 734,000 euros, A base for a Brica unit (veteran firefighters who are called in to help out) in Jerez del Marquesado and three landing strips: Hernán-Valle, La Resinera and Orce.

Granada has nine aircraft; five helicopters and four land-operated aeroplanes to back the 19 fire trucks, two of which are large tankers (11,000 litres) for topping up fire trucks with extra water. The standard fire trucks carry between 3,500 and 4,000 litres of water. You can add to that 200 transport vehicles (mostly Landrovers).

Communications equipped has been significantly updated using the Emergency Digital Net GREA, linking in with the Civil Protection and police forces.

(News: Granada, Andalucia)

Keywords: INFOCA, Fire Trucks, Firefighters, Aircraft, Helicopters, Landrovers, Water Tankers

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