The Armed Forces continued to support the fire emergency in the Paraná Delta area and coordinated with municipal, provincial and national authorities the installation of an Emergency Operations Center (COE) in the Santa Fe town of Alvear, which will allow the coordination and unification of efforts of all the actors involved in fighting the fire, in particular of Santa Fe and Entre Rios.
The support, the forces maintained in a statement, was ordered on Friday by Defense Minister Jorge Taianaand pointed out that the military contribution “responds to an express request from the governor of Santa Fe to the President of the Nation.”
In the report released, the Armed Forces reported that resources were mobilized from the military units of the coast with which, in the vicinity of the aforementioned COE, the installation of a Support Base was begun that will allow organizing and recovering the brigade members.
The governor of Santa Fe, Omar Perotti, participated in the meeting that took place in the morning to coordinate the COE; the joint commander of the Emergency Zone, Colonel Héctor Tornero; the Secretary of Emergency Military Coordination of the Ministry of Defense, Inés Barboza; the Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Santa Fe, Erika Gonnet; the secretary of Civil Protection of the province, Roberto Rioja and the Central Regional coordinator of the National Fire Management System, Andrés Bosch.
Likewise, through the command, control and communications systems of the Armed Forces that are already operating, the updated situation is monitored in real time, both regarding the evolution of firefighting operations and the status and location of means of personnel and material in each of the sectors.
In this sense, he specified that as a result of the fact that these facilities are located in an uncontrolled traffic aerodrome and due to the increase in aerial activity due to the presence of the aircraft mobilized to combat the incident, Army aviation means were made available. to control takeoff and landing.
In turn, the naval resources and vessels of the Rivers Squadron and the 3rd Marine Infantry Battalion, based at the Zárate Naval Base, were made available to add capabilities to face the incident from the water courses.
The report informed that since at the moment the lines of fire are far from the coastline, they will not be used and will remain ready and maintained that a similar situation was resolved regarding the means of crossing and coastal navigation of the Amphibious Engineers Battalion 121 based in Santo Tomé.
For their part, military brigade members certified by the National Fire Fighting System remain enlisted in different units, in order to join ongoing activities as required.
To these efforts, the report said, an Army helicopter will be added for reconnaissance, control and transfer operations of brigade members from the aforementioned Alvear aerodrome and highlighted that military aircraft have been flown for 70 hours transporting brigade members and conducting aerial reconnaissance.
Along these lines, he maintained that with the contribution of resources from the Armored Brigade II, the Alvear Emergency Operations Base will have additional kitchen and lodging capacity for brigade members and operators of the different systems involved, as well as capacity for land transportation.
In addition, the report stated that based on what was coordinated by the military authorities of the Joint Emergency Zone Command with the director of the National Fire Management Plan, Alberto Sufferheld, the means of command and control of Alvear would allow linking and coordinating the actions of the three Operational Centers installed in Zárate, San Pedro and Alvear, which cover a line of action of more than 240 km in action zones that include the provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Buenos Aires.
