On Tuesday, August 25, the Cabinet of Ministers reviewed the state civil protection plan prepared by the Ministry of the Interior, which was developed by the State Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) in cooperation with other institutions. The National Civil Protection Plan is a planning document that is prepared taking into account the risk assessment carried out by the ministries responsible for the respective sector, their subordinate institutions and local governments, and which sets out disaster management, including prevention, preparedness, response and response measures. and their implementers.
"With the adoption of the Civil Protection Plan, the state must continue to work on practical solutions to improve civil protection and strengthen the State Fire and Rescue Service. The Covid-19 pandemic was not the first crisis, and it would be naive to think that it will be the last, and the security and well-being of the population must not be secondary in the next budget. When, if not now, will we finally start building new depots and provide the necessary operational transport to the SFRS? Given the high degree of risk in the performance of duties, it is also necessary to start talking about prioritizing the increase of salaries for firefighters-rescuers, who often need to combine the service with additional work, ”says Minister of the Interior Sandis Ģirģens.
In response to various global disasters and climate change, the new Civil Protection Plan completely changed the approach to disaster risk assessment and planning of management measures, such as less emphasis on institutional response and more on prevention and preparedness by services.
The main task of the civil protection system is to ensure the safety of people, the environment and property by timely forecasting of possible threats, as well as to provide assistance to the victims of the disaster. The new civil protection plan was supplemented with 35 potential threats identified by disaster management institutions in accordance with the methodology. Also, the disaster risk assessment was supplemented, where the epidemic is now assessed with a high level of threat consequences and a high probability of risk.
Along with the adoption of this plan, S. Ģirģens also emphasizes the need to establish an Operational Management Center: “Every modern city and country that takes care of the safety of the population - epidemiological, climate and public safety - has established a modern operational management center. In Latvia, just like in our neighboring countries, there must be a modern, technically provided Operational Management Center, where services and experts would cooperate in a 24/7 manner. ”
In order to ensure a unified disaster risk assessment, at the end of 2017 the Cabinet of Ministers approved the regulations on the structure of the civil protection plan and the information to be included therein. Based on the mentioned regulations, in July 2018 the SFRS developed recommendations on the basis of which the institutions performed disaster risk assessment.
Prepared:
Beata Jonite
Adviser to the Minister of the Interior
Communication issues
Tel .: 28351588
E-mail: beata.jonite@iem.gov.lv