Over 340 fires in March alone, firemen say: We have capacity, we know what's going on.

Fireworkers' Commander for the Pristina Region, Latif Zeka, in an interview for Online Economics, says he never remembers this situation happening until he says it is now about record numbers of cases.

He expresses surprise at this situation until he has shown that fires are caused by carelessness, not rarely deliberate.

I've been responsible for the Fire Brigade for 10 years, and it hasn't happened for the first three months to have so many cases happening in mountain burning, dry grass, bushes. It's a phenomenon I can't explain why and what's going on? Some occasions are deliberate and careless, and fire is lit up to clean up its soil, and then the fire is taking on great proportions. In January we had 121 interventions, 77 were fire”.

“ ...We had 188 of them in February, 148 field-mountain fires, and in March, which had record numbers of 345 interventions, of which 321 were fires, most of them in fields and mountains, in municipalities we covered by Pristina, Fushe Kosovo, Obilic and Gracanica”, Zeka has said.

He says they have not had enough capacity to intervene in these cases, and often there have had to engage additional people, citizens and forest guards.

Fortunately, Zeka has not had people who have been hurt until the material damage caused is a big bone.

“Unfortunately, we haven't had enough capacity, but in many cases other firemen and foresters are engaged. In some cases, we have been helped by citizens themselves. I apologize to some of the citizens we haven't had a chance to help all those who have called. Fortunately, there were no firemen or citizens injured. Material damage has been, which has been a great beauty”, Zeka said in an interview for Online Economics.

But he has a problem. He says that despite free jobs for firefighters, municipalities and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, they cannot agree on the competition's proclamation because their status under whose management they are still undefinated.

“It is the major lack of firefighters in Pristina, but also throughout Kosovo. The Pristina municipality should have at least over 200 firefighters, but we're only 99, we have 16 cheap jobs that have left out or opened businesses here, but some have retired. There are 16 job free countries and no competitions for these countries are open. We are in a poor position because since 2012 status is not defined, whether we are employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or municipalities. Legally we are MPB workers, we actually take wages and investments from municipalities and we can't agree to municipalities and the Emergency Management Agency, which is within the MPB's framework for who to announce the” competition, Zeka said in an interview for EO.

Despite that, Zeka says they have received promises of improved conditions, and this is expected to happen with the Law of Salaries, where the cofficiency will be equal to that of the police.

With the new law, the Fire Chief will go where the police are as requested. Night hours, extra hours, holidays, and pay risk will also be paid, which is 40 percent”, Zeka said.