General Directorate of Forestry Fire Fighting Planes and Helicopters Delivery Ceremony, with the participation of our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Prof. Dr. It was held at the OGM Aviation Department Facilities with the participation of Vahit Kirişci.
Speaking at the ceremony where 1 T70 helicopter, 1 reconnaissance aircraft and 4 Air Tractor model fire extinguishing aircraft, which will contribute to the formation of the most powerful air fleet in the history of the Republic, were taken into inventory, Minister Kirişci said that they are making an intense effort regarding the forest as in every field.
Noting that they took a revolutionary step for both forest villagers and forestry with the amendment they made in the Forest Law, Kirişci continued as follows:
“With the legislative change, we will see very positive changes both in agriculture and forestry in the coming period. Our forest villagers, who are the volunteer guards of the forest, are indispensable for us. We have always stood by the development of the countryside and will continue to be. In order to reinforce the belonging of our forest villagers, we must support them financially. In this context, this law has provided us with the opportunity to give 10 percent of our income from the forest to these brothers, after the expenses are deducted. This figure corresponds to exactly 2 billion liras. 2 billion liras will have reached our forest villagers apart from the support we have given so far. They, too, will have reaped the rewards of their voluntarily guarding the forest.”
Minister Kirişci announced that with this arrangement, they will pay the timber and firewood needed by the forest villagers at 70 percent cheaper than the cost.
Underlining that what they need to do next is to prevent forest fires, Kirişci said, “Here, our equipment, trained human resources and legislation are very important. Our land, aircraft and human resources that we have gained to protect the green homeland in Turkey will add strength to us. We will have 31 aircraft in total. The process regarding the planes, helicopters and UAVs we rented continues. The cost of our 31 aircraft is $286 million.” he said.
AIR BASE WILL BE ESTABLISHED IN MUGLA AND IZMIR
Pointing out the features of the reconnaissance aircraft included in the inventory and stating that the headquarters on land will be moved to the sky thanks to the cameras it has, Minister Kirişci said that for this reason President Erdoğan signed the name “OTAĞ” on the aircraft.
Minister Kirişci emphasized that Turkey is the 5th country that uses this plane after the USA, Canada, Australia and Portugal, and said:
“Our aircraft is the latest version of technology used by others. In this sense, I would like to state that we made the right choice. It delivers the information it receives to decision makers in 20 minutes. This will make our job much easier. We reduced the fire response time to 11 minutes. Our goal is to get it down to 10 minutes, but it's not enough. I would like to give one more good news. In particular, the area corresponding to 55 percent of the forest area in the country related to the fire is an area with a very high risk of burning in the Mediterranean basin. At the beginning of this is Antalya, Muğla and İzmir. Here, we used Dalaman airbase for our aircraft as the general directorate, but since it is a civilian airport, it limited our operations at certain times. It was a risk for us as the fire season came to the peak of tourism. Now, I hope, we will implement 2 private air bases, one in Muğla and the other in İzmir, where we can use our own aircraft. When needed, these will be used as a base for all our units.”
Drawing attention to the importance of domestic and national production of the vehicles in question, Kirişci added that he believes that TEKNOFEST generation young people can achieve this.
After the ceremony, fire planes performed a demonstration flight.
DETAILS ON AIRCRAFT AND HELICOPTERS
The second T2,5 helicopter, which was produced by TAI and the first of which was included in the OGM inventory, with a water throwing capacity of 70 tons and capable of working at night, was received with this ceremony. The third T70 helicopter will be delivered by the end of the year.
With the ceremony, 3 of the 20 Air Tractor model firefighting aircraft with a water throwing capacity of 4 tons were received and entered into the inventory. The remaining 16 aircraft are planned to be added to the fleet within three years.
In addition, 1 reconnaissance aircraft, which was commissioned as an important element in fire management, was also received. This type of aircraft is used in only 5 countries in the world, including Turkey.
This reconnaissance aircraft, which will be used in the fire season for the first time this year, can perform tasks such as fire detection and image transmission. In addition to this, the reconnaissance aircraft also features high-tech mission systems that can collect and map digital data through sensors working with artificial intelligence.
The total cost of 22 aircraft, which currently consists of 9 aircraft and 31 helicopters belonging to the OGM fleet, reached $286 million.
GIANT FLEET IN FIRE FIGHTING
With the new vehicles purchased, the most powerful air fleet in the history of the Republic was formed in the fight against forest fires.
This year, there will be an effective response to forest fires with a total of 75 aircraft, 21 helicopters, 8 aircraft, and 104 UAVs.
The total water throwing capacity of the GDF air forces, which responded to forest fires, which was 2000 tons at the beginning of the 85s, reached a total of 431 tons as of this year.
In the next 5 years, the firefighting fleet will be further strengthened with 41 aircraft, mainly from domestic and national sources.
A contract worth 2 million dollars was signed with TAI for 4 helicopters, which will be converted from domestic and national Atak-10 helicopters and have a water throwing capacity of 208 tons.
In the fight against forest fires, a total of 1546 thousand 2 land vehicles will be on the field this year, with 456 water sprinklers, 4 first response vehicles and other construction equipment. While this number was 981 in 2002, it has increased 1107 times in 21 years.
In the fight against forest fires, 25 thousand forest personnel and the Forest Search and Rescue Team (ORKUT) of 462 will serve as the main actors of the land force.