Joint Portuguese forest fire drill taking place today

The Junta de Extremadura, the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority of Portugal, and the European Consortium of the Valkyries Project will carry out a forest fire drill between the Cáceres town of Valencia de Alcántara and the Portuguese town of Sierra de San Mamede today, Thursday 4 May.

As reported by the government of Extremadura, the drill will serve to test the performance of the emergency services on both sides of the Raya when it comes to coordinating effectively, controlling the flames, bringing the affected populations to safety and extinguishing the fire.

In addition, the action and coordination procedures established in the Special Plan for Civil Protection against Forest Fires in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura (INFOCAEX), the Plan to Fight Forest Fires in Extremadura (INFOEX) and the Emergency and Protection Plans will be evaluated.

To do this, the ES-Alert Massive Alert System will be activated from the 112 Extremadura, so that mobile phones in the Valencia de Alcántara environment will receive this alert.

More than 400 members of the INFOEX Plan, SEPEI Cáceres, CPEI Badajoz, Civil Guard, SES, Red Cross, DYA, Military Emergency Unit, Local Police and Civil Protection Volunteers, among others, will participate in the realisation and execution of the drill.

On the Portuguese side, members of the Valkyries Consortium, ANEPC, the Évora Hospital, the INEM (Portuguese emergencies), the National Republican Guard, the ICNF, the Portugal Fire Brigade and 56 vehicles including fire trucks, ambulances, a medical helicopter, vehicles police, rapid intervention, truck from the Outpost and coordination vehicles, among others.

The simulation will also test the systems and applications being developed by the European Valkyries Project and whose purpose is to improve interconnection and communication between emergency teams in cross-border areas.

The next drills to be carried out in other cross-border areas are a chemical accident with a toxic cloud in Slovakia-Italy; an earthquake in Bulgaria-Greece; and a maritime accident with an oil spill in the Netherlands-Denmark.

The drill is part of the Valkyries Extremadura-Portugal Conference being held this week.

In these conferences, the Valkyries Project will be presented, plans, action protocols and coordination that Extremadura and Portugal apply to provide a coordinated response to large cross-border emergencies such as large forest fires and multi-victim accidents.

In addition, there will be demonstrations of the applications that are being developed in the Valkyries Project and the new comprehensive emergency management system for 112 and the ANEPC emergency management system in Portugal will be presented.

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