Prime Minister Edi Rama has expressed Albania’s solidarity with France and Spain, which are battling massive wildfires, stressing that climate change is making this phenomenon a shared challenge for all countries.
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During a meeting with emergency response teams at Farka Air Base, Rama said that hundreds of thousands of people in France and Spain had been forced to leave their homes because of the flames.
“As we gather in this helicopter hangar, more than 300,000 people in France and Spain had left their homes as of last night. Meanwhile, more than 55,000 residents have been evacuated from areas around Bordeaux, where the flames have reached the streets of the suburbs. In Spain, it is said to be the worst fire Madrid has ever experienced in its history.
In France, the flames have reduced more than 200,000 hectares to ashes, an area larger than the city of Tirana. Your colleagues in these countries are going through hell, making an unimaginable sacrifice to protect lives and nature. I am convinced that none of you who work in this profession see them as foreigners or merely as news from abroad, because this is the scene of a shared battle, in a shared climate, during a shared summer season.
When you see hundreds of thousands of terrified people fleeing with whatever they can carry, it is just like seeing our own people, because the danger and the challenge are the same. Therefore, with your permission, I would like to use this gathering to convey my solidarity to all your colleagues in France and Spain. Thanks to you, we have done so in the past as well, and we are ready to provide our assistance when our neighbors are in distress.
They have also helped us when we have faced the same hardship. We have our people in Canada who spare no effort, coming here in person and training our forces here. Today, we are all clear that major wildfires are no longer the exception; they are the rule in a changed climate,” Rama said.
The prime minister emphasized that Albania has received assistance from international partners in similar situations and is ready to offer support when friendly countries face emergencies. According to him, massive wildfires are no longer an exception but a consequence of climate change, meaning the country must be prepared to confront them.
“What is happening in Spain and France should not make us ask whether it could happen here, but rather how prepared we are for when it does. Albania is much smaller and does not have the luxury of losing a single hectare of forest. This year, what we have done is prepare. It is like a team that trains all year for the World Cup.
We have tried to organize all the assistance coming from every possible authority. What is new this year is that the Minister of State for Local Government, who comes from a local government background, has played the role of coordinator.
We have helicopters whose number could rise to nine at any moment. We have completed the procedure for three aircraft that will arrive at the end of the year and will be owned by the Albanian state. We have an agreed process under which, in the event of a specific need, aircraft coming from the base where young people are being trained will be made available to us,” Prime Minister Rama said.
