Press Releases 2008
U.S. Wildfire Expert Team Lays Foundation for Future Cooperation with Greece
Athens (April 3, 2008) -- Another team of U.S. Forest Service experts, the third since last summer’s devastating wildfires, visited Greece from March 31 to April 3 to establish a framework for cooperation for the coming two years. “The United States stands firmly behind Greece’s long-term recovery effort,” said Ambassador Daniel V. Speckhard, “so I’m very glad to see Greek and American firefighters and forestry experts sharing their experiences and learning from each other.”
The four-member U.S. Forest Service team discussed additional opportunities for cooperation in firefighting and fire prevention activities with a wide range of Greek experts. In meetings with the Fire Brigade Chief, the Director of the Greek Forestry Service, and the Secretary General of the Ministry of Environment, they laid the framework for a two year cooperation program to include an extensive series of training and partnership events bringing Greek firefighters and forestry experts to the U.S. and U.S. experts to Greece. The first of these exchanges begins at the end of April. The team also attended the Exposec ‘08 conference on April 1, and the symposium on the prevention of disasters and their consequences in Greece organized by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Harvard School of Public Health, in Athens, on April 2.
This is the third U.S. team of experts to come to Greece, and it is part of an ongoing, larger American effort to assist Greece both in its recovery from last year’s fires and in addressing the threat of wildfires in the future. Immediately after Greece declared a state of emergency on August 25, 2007, USAID offered $700,000 in emergency funds and commodities to the Hellenic Red Cross and $1.2 million in protective gear for firefighters and technical assistance to the Greek government, for a total of $1.9 million in U.S. government funding. Three teams of top U.S. disaster and wildfire response specialists have since come to Greece, and have now agreed on this two-year plan for future cooperation.
