Rescue across the border: cooperation between the Julian and Istrian fire brigades resumes after the end of the pandemic

By Cristiano Antonino Last updated Mar 27, 2023

Relief on the Slovenian-Italian border: on 21 March, the Regional Director of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Fire Brigade, Engineer Agatino Carrolo, and the Trieste fire brigade commander, Engineer Girolamo Bentivoglio Fiandra, accepted the invitation of the regional commander, Dino Kozlevaz, and visited the main fire brigade locations in the Istrian region

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The aim of the visit, in addition to the mutual acquaintance between the heads of the two fire-fighting and technical rescue organisations, was to resume the cross-border cooperation PROGETTI already developed in previous years, which had been inevitably slowed down due to the limitations imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic emergency.

The object of the visit, in the city of Pula, was the headquarters of the Regional Command of the Fire Brigade of Istria and the main barracks of the Public Fire Fighting Unit, in the presence of the provincial commander Ivica Rojni¿.

The delegation then travelled to the headquarters in Rovinj, where they were welcomed by Commander Evilijano Gašpi¿, and then to Poreč and Umag, whose VF Public Fire Units are commanded by Denis Matoševi¿ and Bojan Štokovac respectively.

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During the visits to the individual operational units, there was a fruitful exchange of information on the characteristics of the vehicles and equipment used, and on intervention procedures and techniques in the various emergency scenarios.

Particular attention was paid to forest fire-fighting activities, a problem that plagues both Friuli Venezia Giulia and the Istrian region, not only during the summer period, and to naval fire-fighting.

The latter aspect had already been developed in recent years thanks to the PROGETTI named N.A.M.I.R.G. (North Adriatic Maritime Incident Response Group), an initiative co-funded by the European Commission and aimed at creating a joint response mechanism in the event of a fire on board a ship at sea through the training of a cross-border team of firefighters and the implementation of an effective emergency coordination system by the three countries – Italy, Slovenia and Croatia – bordering the northern Adriatic basin.

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Precisely from the resumption of joint training activities related to the N.A.M.I.R.G. project, which also involves the Koper Fire Brigade, there is the intention to restart the fruitful cooperation between the various VF components of the neighbouring regions of Friuli Venezia Giulia and Istria.