Fire Regulation: What changes did the fierce reactions bring?

Clarifications after the uproar caused by the Joint Ministerial Decision on the Regulation of Property Fire Protection and the reactions of municipalities and KEDEwhich threatens even with appeal to the Council of State (StE)but also owners are given by the ministries with their new circular Environment and Energy and Climate Crisis specializing and reducing the number of subject properties within the cities.

The two ministries indirectly admit them ambiguities contained in the original decision, as a consequence of which there was little response from the owners, issuing a circular of 14 pages, in which it is stated that answers are given “after a multitude of questions submitted on the application of the regulation by municipalities and citizens of properties that fall within its scope”.

The circular, which was issued just 20 days before the final deadline for the submission of the technical report of the properties, a period which includes the Easter holidays, “corrects” the horizontal obligation to take measures and submit the relevant studies, which defined that it concerned all properties within a radius of 300 meters, even from parks or groves, with the result that in many urban and semi-urban municipalities areas were included that reached up to 1/3 of the municipalities with the number of properties it concerned exceeding 2 millions. It is now clarified that “the regulation concerns built-up properties located in forests, woodlands, peri-urban greenery, declared wooded, reforested and grassland areas, as well as within a radius of three hundred (300) meters from the boundaries of these areas. It also concerns buildings within parks and groves of cities and residential areas. It is pointed out that in the case of groves, the regulation applies only to the buildings located within them and not to properties bordering the grove, nor to those that face the grove».

It is also clarified that the regulation does not apply to cultivated lands, not even in the case where there is a building of auxiliary use for the storage of equipment, tools and materials required for the service of agricultural activity.

The new circular, however, does not extend again the application dates of the regulation, which are as follows:

– Elaboration of the risk assessment and submission of a technical report, by 10/05/2024,

– Taking measures and submitting a declaration by the owner by 10/06/2024,

– As far as the settlements are concerned, the OTAs complete the risk assessment form and the technical report regarding the formation of a non-burning zone and any gradation of it around the boundaries of the settlement by 05/26/2024.

The circular also includes changes regarding the composition of the three-member committees sample checks which will be carried out during the fire protection period by the municipalities at a rate proportional to the risk of the property and will exclusively concern the verification of compliance with the measures of the technical report as declared by the owner of the property. It is recalled that many municipalities declared a clear inability to set up the said committees since they have neither the resources nor the human resources. Based on the areas of clarification, it is defined that the three-member committees consist of a forester or agronomist, an engineer and one more employee of the Civil Protection Department of the Region. However in the event that the municipalities do not have all of the aforementioned specialties, employees of another relevant specialty who serve in the technical services, the Environment – Civil Protection services or the Construction services can be appointed to the committee.

The three stages of implementation of the Regulation

In the interpretative circular it is defined that the implementation of the regulation includes three stages, namely the assessment of the property’s dangerousness, the drawing up of a technical report of measures and actions, as well as the declaration of their application by the owner of the property. It is clarified that both the evaluation and the technical report are carried out once unless there are changes.

Analytically:

THE real estate risk assessment it is done for the area of ​​influence of the property and is reflected in the Risk Assessment Form from which its classification (low, medium, high and particularly high) is derived. The assessment form is drawn up once and its re-drafting is required only in the event that the parameters taken into account during the assessment are modified (such as any change in the width of the access road to the property, addition of a water intake point for a fire engine, construction of new buildings on neighboring properties with an impact in the 3 index of the density of the built environment) if they bring about a change in the property’s risk category.

The Assessment Form is drawn up by a technical scientist with training in topography, vegetation, infrastructure and networks, i.e. by engineers (surveyors, architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, environmental engineers, etc.) as well as foresters, agronomists or geotechnicians scientists.

Exceptionally in the case of settlements, demarcated or not, and residential concentrations that are entirely surrounded by forest, grassland, reforested and other lands, the risk assessment is drawn up for the entire settlement, in a single form, by the competent OTA.

The technical report is also drawn up once, but is resubmitted updated in the event of a modification, either of the risk assessment form, or if there are changes, such as, for example, the addition of a new building to the property or the extension of an existing one.

The report is drawn up by scientists in the technical field and specifically by engineers of every specialty. The evaluation form and the technical report can be prepared by the same technical scientist or by different ones, but their content should in any case converge. The technical report includes, among others:

• description of the property, with particular reference to its location in relation to the forested, reforestable, etc. area, the buildings within the property, as well as the type, size and location of the plants, description of the neighboring properties, any buildings within them and their surroundings and every other critical element

• determination of the required preventive measures, passive fire protection measures and active fire protection measures, as well as any recommendations to the owners for the evacuation preparation plan, – the works and actions that must be carried out in the case of properties with existing buildings to comply with the prescribed measures, – of the required administrative actions for the execution of construction works and is accompanied by a plan of the property where the necessary elements are recorded, such as indicatively, the positions of the main and auxiliary buildings, the access to the property, the protection zones, the positions and distances of the trees, the distances of neighboring buildings, etc

The co-competent ministries point out that an administrative act is issued only for those works that are of a construction nature (mostly works provided for in passive and active fire protection requirements).

Especially for them felling of trees within private properties, as long as it concerns properties within an area plan and, within a settlement or outside an area plan with buildings erected on the basis of a building permit, for the application of protection zones, it is stipulated that this is carried out with the issuance of a small-scale construction works approval.

After drawing up the risk assessment form and the technical report and submitting them to the special information system and temporarily to the relevant municipality, the owner is obliged for each year before the start of the fire protection season to submit to the information system or the municipality, the responsible declaration of taking the measures and compliance with the technical report.

The measures for this year

As specified in the circular, for this year’s fire season only the preventive fire protection measures are applied, which are:

• ensuring fuel-free access to the property,

• regular cleaning which includes regular pruning and cleaning of trees and bushes from any existing dry, thinning of non-fire-resistant woody vegetation, cutting of branches that touch or are at a short distance from the external structural elements of the building, soil cleaning (pine needles), grass cutting, regular control and maintenance of the irrigation system, cleaning of roofs and gutters from combustible materials.

• material transport which may be stored freely on the property, such as waste, firewood, containers with fuel, paints, etc. in a closed area or fireproof cupboard.

• drafting by the property owner(s) of the evacuation preparation plan, i.e. a checklist and actions that will increase the level of preparedness in the event of a fire, in which the necessary actions are recorded before evacuating the building, as well as how users can escape from the property to a safe place. In the case of properties with more than one ownership, the evacuation preparation plan is drawn up by all co-owners and posted in a prominent place to inform tenants and the public.

• design of perimeter protection zones, i.e. the three levels of graduated protection around a building where there is a successive reduction of fuel as we approach it.