Cantabria has requested the Ministry of the Interior to urgently hold a new specific meeting on forest fires, with the aim of strengthening coordination between administrations and improving the planning of the response to this type of emergency.
The request has been made by the counselor of Presidency, Justice, Security, and Administrative Simplification, Isabel Urrutia, during her intervention via videoconference in the Plenary of the National Civil Protection Council, where the State and autonomous communities, including Cantabria, have unanimously approved the new basic guidelines for Civil Protection.
Urrutia has emphasized this approval, which "is the result of the joint work carried out over the last few months" between the General Administration of the State and the autonomous governments. As she has pointed out, the ratified documents constitute an "essential tool to continue advancing towards a more modern, homogeneous, and effective Civil Protection system" throughout the territory, and she has stressed that "it is time to take a further step in institutional coordination regarding forest fires."
For this reason, she has requested a monographic meeting in which the central Administration, the autonomous communities, and all departments with responsibilities in the matter, including the councils of Presidency and Rural Development of Cantabria, sit at the same table.
In her view, "coordination cannot be limited solely to action when an emergency occurs," so she considers it "fundamental" that, beforehand, all administrations exchange information, know precisely the available resources, and jointly design the action plans.
In this regard, the counselor has emphasized that the autonomous communities know "perfectly" the own means they have to face forest fires, but she has reiterated the need to have "complete" information about the state-owned resources that can be activated in support of regional devices.
"Knowing in advance those means, their availability, and their intervention capacity will allow us to improve planning, expedite decision-making, and provide a more effective response when a situation of special gravity occurs," the head of Presidency has pointed out.
During the question and answer session of the Plenary, Urrutia has formalized this demand before Interior and has defended the convenience of a technical and institutional meeting focused on wildfires, which contributes to tightening cooperation between administrations and deepening the shared knowledge of existing resources.
In his words, "The fight against wildfires requires permanent coordination among all administrations, so sharing information, knowing the capabilities of each one, and working with a common plan is the best guarantee to protect people, natural heritage, and the territory."
In addition, the National Civil Protection Council has given the green light, also unanimously, to a new package of basic guidelines on self-protection planning, chemical risk, and seismic and volcanic risks, thus culminating the work developed in recent months by the technical groups in which Cantabria has participated "actively".