Paris: French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a series of measures aimed at preventing wildfires in the country.
Addressing a ceremony to honour firefighters, mayors, helicopter pilots and volunteers who fought wildfires in the country this summer, Macron on Friday announced the launch of a “forest forecast” and a “wildfire forecast” service to facilitate the mobilisation of help in fighting conflagrations.
The state will also allocate 150 million euros ($150 million) to local authorities from 2023 to help them modernise their wildfire preparedness, he said.
The country will order four new Canadair firefighting planes to bring the size of the fleet to 16 by the end of Macron’s presidential term in 2027, Xinhua news agency reported.
He added that he also planned to have new equipment tested to fight wildfires, such as autonomous drones, satellite detection systems and artificial intelligence.
To sustainably manage the country’s forests, Macron said that one billion trees would be planted within 10 years.
Wildfires destroyed more than 72,000 hectare of land in France this summer. More than 60,000 people had to be evacuated and over 3.3 million tons of CO2 were released into the atmosphere, equaling five per cent of the country’s annual emissions, he added. (1 Euro = 1 US dollar)
–IANS
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