NEWS & EVENTS

Full scale exercise NAMIRG 2019

Nov 25, 2019

Croatian Ministry of Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, together with Istria County Fire brigade, organized a two-day event in Pula, from 21 – 22 November 2019. The meeting dedicated to “Protecting the marine environment from accidental oil spills from ships” was held on November 21st, while the exercise, which is a part of the EU funded project “North Adriatic Maritime Incident Response Group”, took place the next day.

The meeting included presentations from those involved in oil spill from Fidelity ship that happened in Raša bay in June 2018, and a panel discussion on the “Challenges in the implementation of response measures in case of accidental oil spills”, which was moderated by ATRAC’s director Vedran Martinić.

In the scope of the exercise NAMIRG Pula 2019, Istria County’s Fire brigade, along with Koper Fire brigade (Republic of Slovenia) and Regional Fire brigade of Friuli Venezia Giulia (Republic of Italy) who are partners in this project, conducted a final exercise to test the preparedness for the interventions that involve fire on board a ship. NAMIRG project is important for establishing the North Adriatic MIRG, modeled on the existing MIRG groups in other European countries. Total of 27 fire fighters, 9 from each country, are a part of NAMIRG group and are specialized for responding on incidents at sea.

This full scale exercise also included search and rescue actions, as well as testing the response mechanisms of the existing National Oil Spill Contingency Plan, with participants from Harbour Master’s Office Pula, Croatian Coast Guard and company Dezinsekcija d.o.o.