Dresden (dpa/sn) – Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) thanked for the help in fighting forest fires in Saxon Switzerland. “The fact that Slovakia, Poland and Italy are providing support on the German-Czech border is a great sign of European solidarity,” he told the German Press Agency in Dresden on Wednesday. Day and night, many full-time and volunteer forces would work to extinguish the forest fires in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains and on the Saxon-Brandenburg border: “For that, my deepest thanks and respect. We receive a lot of support from the Bundeswehr and the federal police, but also from Europe Neighbors.”
According to government spokesman Ralph Schreiber, the cabinet is actively supporting the affected regions in fighting the fire. There is a daily telephone conference with Kretschmer, in which the Ministry of the Interior, the state directorate and the State Chancellery take part. In the meantime, the round has also been expanded to include the district administrator of the Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains, Michael Geißler (CDU). The Prime Minister also spoke to the German Ambassador in the Czech Republic on Wednesday in order to prepare a meeting of Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) on Thursday on the Czech side of the national park.
“Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer expressly supports the district’s order for a ban on entering the forests in the region and asks that this be strictly observed. It is now important that the emergency services involved can extinguish the forest fires unhindered and that hazards are ruled out,” said Schreiber.