The deadlines for submitting: a) the preparation of the risk assessment and submission of a technical report, until 10/05/2024, were extended by a circular of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as follows, b ) taking measures and submitting a declaration by the owner by 10/06/2024.
Specifically, after a long gestation, a circular was finally issued by the Ministries of Environment and Civil Protection with clarifications on the implementation of the measures of the regulation of fire protection for properties in and near forest properties, which attempts to provide answers to the “numerous questions submitted on the application of the regulation by municipalities and citizens of properties that fall within its scope”. The circular gives clarifications about the “specialist”, who will draw up the technical report and the risk assessment form listing engineering and geotechnical specialties, “with the reservation of the professional rights of all technical scientists” according to the PD of 2018. And it is noted that “the assessment form and the technical report may drawn up by the same technical scientist or by different ones”.
Exceptions for city properties
At the same time, it comes to light the issue of the horizontal application of the measures in a radius of 300 meters which included together with forest properties and properties within cities near parks and groves, clarifying that:
-“The regulation concerns structured properties located in forests, forest lands, peri-urban greenery, declared forested areas , 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 should be noted that in the case of groves, the regulation applies only to the buildings located within them and not to the neighboring properties of the grove, nor to those that face the grove”.
It is also stated that the study process against the provisions of the regulation, includes three stages:
– the assessment of the property’s dangerousness,
– the preparation of a technical report of measures and actions, as well as
– the statement of their application by the owner of the property”.
Cutting trees with approval of small-scale construction works
“Regarding any requirement to cut trees within private properties, as long as they are properties within a regional plan and, within a settlement or outside a regional plan with buildings erected on the basis of a building permit, for the application of the protection zones, this is carried out with the issuance of a small-scale construction work approval,” says the circular.
Measures for 2024
“For this year’s fire season of 2024, only the preventive fire protection measures are applied to the properties of the scope with existing buildings” is noted in the circular and are listed in detail.
Sample checks
Sample checks are foreseen and it is noted that: “Checks are carried out during the fire protection period on a sample basis, at a rate proportional to the risk of of the property and concern exclusively the verification of compliance with the measures of the technical report as declared by the owner of the property”.
Extensions: The new dates
In the circular the new deadlines that have been set after the extensions that were given due to the reactions that have been expressed are mentioned. Specifically, the following apply:
a) the preparation of the risk assessment and submission of a technical report, by 10/05/2024,
b) the taking of measures and submission of the owner’s statement by on 10/06/2024,
c) for the settlements, 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 the 26th /05/2024.
The text of the circular
The entire circular signed by Ethymios Bakoyannis, General Secretary of the of Planning and Urban Environment of the Ministry of the Environment, Eustathios Stathopoulos, General Secretary of Forests of the Ministry of the Environment and Vassilios Papageorgiou, General Secretary of Civil Protection of the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, on the subject: “Implementation of the Regulation on Fire Protection of Properties in or near forest areas” is as follows:
A. General:
The regulation aims to increase the resilience and strengthen the degree of fire safety of properties located in or near forest areas. The aim is to protect the life and health of the public, the natural environment and forest ecosystems, as well as real estate by limiting their contribution to the spread of fire. An important parallel objective of the regulation is to inform, raise awareness and prepare the public to deal with risks from forest fires, which have intensified due to climate change.
B. Scope:
The regulation applies to built 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 limits of these areas. It also concerns buildings within parks and groves of cities and residential areas.
It should be noted that in the case of groves, the regulation applies only to the buildings located within them and not to the neighboring properties of the grove, nor to those that have face in the grove. This is due to a sufficient possibility of control, limitation of transmission, access and intervention of the forces in the event of a fire in a grove or park which are surrounded by residential buildings. In the same way, individual forest pockets of small area can be treated in areas within the plan which are surrounded by buildings. On the contrary, in the settlements, as well as in residential concentrations, which are entirely surrounded by forest land, the risk of fire spreading from the forest land to the settlement or vice versa is increased and less controlled, with the result that a different procedure is provided for in the regulation (Article 4 of Chapter Two), which is analyzed below. 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.
C. Procedure:
It is noted that the technical regulations in general and in this case the regulation of the subject, applies to all properties with buildings that fall within its scope, as a requirement of the urban planning legislation and regulation specialization matters of building content that improve the health and safety of tenants, residents and buildings and protect the environment, without the possibility of exemption due to other factors, such as any insurance of the building.
In particular, the study process during provisions of the regulation, includes three stages: 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 property owner.
1. The assessment of the property’s dangerousness it is based on the six groups of criteria of Article 5 of Chapter One of the regulation. This assessment is carried out 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. In the regulation there are elements, links and appendices to facilitate the work of the authors of the evaluation.
The evaluation form is drawn up once and its redrafting is required only in the event that the parameters taken into account during the evaluation are changed (such as for example 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 on the index of the density of the built environment) if they bring about a change in the hazard category of the property.
The An assessment form is drawn up by a technical scientist with training in topography, vegetation, infrastructure and networks. Indicatively and without prejudice to the professional rights of all technical scientists, the evaluation form can be drawn up by engineers (surveyors, architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, environmental engineers, etc.) as well as foresters, agronomists or geotechnicians scientists.
With the exception of the above, in the case of settlements, demarcated or not, and residential concentrations that are entirely surrounded by forest, grassland, reforestation and other areas, the risk assessment is drawn up for the entire settlement , in a single form, by the responsible OTA.
2. The technical report includes:
A. description:
– of the property, with particular reference to its position in terms of forest, reforestation, etc. area and the critical points of the evaluation form that led to its classification in terms of risk,
– of the building(s) within the property, with reference to their geometric characteristics, structural elements and materials,
– of the surrounding area, constructions (location and materials ) and its facilities, as well as the type, size and location of the plants,
– the neighboring properties, any buildings within them and their surrounding area according to the above,
– each of another element critical and related to the object of the regulation.
B. 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 taken in the case of real estate with existing buildings in order to comply with the above-mentioned measures,
– the case-by-case required administrative actions for the execution of construction works of article 28 of Law 4495/17, as applicable.
of neighboring buildings, etc.
It should be noted 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) as long as they do not fall under the works of Article 30 of Law 4495/17, for which no building permit or approval of small-scale construction works is required. With regard to the implementation of preventive measures such as cleaning the surrounding vegetation, the basement, cutting branches of standing trees, no permit or approval is required. areas and, within a settlement or outside the plan of areas with buildings erected on the basis of a building permit, for the application of the protection zones, this is carried out by issuing a small-scale construction works approval, where instead of element aa) of case g of no. YPEN/DAOKA/43266/1174/2020 (B’ 1843) Decision, the technical report of this regulation is submitted. According to article 36 of no. ΙΠEN/DAOKA/66006/2360/2023 of Decision (B’ 3985) the provisions of the Regulation on fire protection of properties in or near forest areas prevail over the provisions of article 19 of the Building Regulation in the event that it is not possible to ensure the minimum mandatory number of trees.
The technical report is drawn up by engineers who have the right to sign fire protection studies according to the provisions of p. specialty” (civil engineers, architectural engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, agronomists, surveyors engineers, chemical engineers, mining engineers and metallurgical engineers, naval engineers, production and management engineers).
The evaluation form and the technique report may be drawn up by the same technical scientist or by different ones. In any case, they are interrelated documents whose content must converge. The technical report is also drawn up once, but it is resubmitted updated in the event of a modification, either of the risk assessment form, or of its content and the elements it includes (e.g. addition of a new building to the property or extension of an existing one).
In the case of settlements or residential concentrations surrounded by forest land, after the OTA has notified the residents of the risk classification of the settlement’s risk assessment form, which has been carried out by it, the private individuals’ technical reports on the their properties which concern all of the aforementioned elements (description and determination of measures) except those for the creation of the protection zones which are applied around the settlement as mentioned below. Given that the preventive fire protection measures for existing buildings differ little depending on the property’s risk classification, it is recommended to take them even before the notification of the settlement’s risk assessment form by the OTAs.
3. After drafting of 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.
It is clarified that the technical report, the risk assessment form and the declaration of implementation of the fire safety measures concern the entire property (buildings and surrounding area) and are submitted once for the whole of it, regardless of the existence of any divided properties.
D. Measures:
For this year’s fire season of 2024, only the preventive fire protection measures are applied to the scope properties with existing buildings, namely:
a) ensuring clean from combustibles for access to the property,
b) regular cleaning which includes regular pruning and clearing of trees and shrubs 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.
c) transportation of materials that may be stored freely on the property , such as waste, firewood, containers with fuel, paints, etc. in a closed space or fireproof cabinet.
d) drawing up by the property owner(s) of the evacuation preparation plan, i.e. a checklist and of actions that will increase the degree of preparedness in the event of a fire incident, which records the necessary actions before evacuating the building, as well as the way users 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 for the information of tenants and the public.
e) planning of the perimeter protection zones, i.e. the three levels of graded protection protection around a building where there is a successive reduction of combustible materials as we approach it.
The design of the perimeter protection lives can be applied either for each individual building, or for building complexes of the same or another property as long as they are between a distance of less than five (5.00) meters, after consultation with their owners, with the integration of all of them in the “outline” on the basis of which the protection zones will be determined. Similarly, the “outline of the building” may also include constructions of the surrounding area, such as pergolas, canopies, bbq, etc.
Regarding the provisions of the regulation on preventive fire protection measures of subpar. 3.1.1, 3.1.2 and 3.1.3 of Article 3 of the Chapter Two of the Regulation It is noted that they are general, with the possibility of blocking, following relevant documentation in the technical report.
Specifically for the case of settlements , demarcated or not as well as residential densities surrounded by forest areas, in accordance with Article 4 of the Chapter Two of the Regulation, is provided for the creation of the protection zones that instead of their individual application on each property, the A total of the settlement as a section-system, with the classified perimeter protection zones being shaped around the boundaries of the settlement in consultation and cooperation with the relevant services (local government and forestry service). Especially around the boundaries of the settlement it is necessary to create a 10 -meter -wide fireplace zone.
e. Checks:
Checks are carried out during the firefighting period sampling, at a rate analogous to the risk of the property and relate solely to the observation of the compliance with the technical report as stated by the owner of the property. /P>
The three -member committees consist of a forester or agronomist, an engineer and another employee of the Department of Civil Protection of the Region. If municipalities do not have all these specialties, the Commission may designate officials of another specialty but with the subject of the regulation serving in other service units: Technical Service, Environment – Civil Protection Service, Building Service. /P>
St. Forestry Services (Forestry and Forestry Departments): Forest land in the case of forest fires and to limit the contribution of these properties to the spread of any fire event in order to protect forests and their ecosystems. In this context, for the execution of the required real estate in the planning of areas or within settlements, or not, or outside the plan with buildings erected with a building permit (cases of Article 3 (7) of Law 998 /79, as in force), does not require any approval by the Forest Service. (par. of the Local Authorities of the perimeter protection zones of Article 4 of the Chapter Two of the Rules of Procedure in settlements and residential densities (Chapter F of Law 4685/2020, as applicable). The specific provisions of forest legislation and that all -type buildings, constructions and installations of permanent or temporary nature are compulsorily demolished in accordance with Article 67a of Law 998/79, as in force in the offenders, contractors, subcontractors, manufacturers and customers imposed on their The penalties referred to in Article 71 of the same law.
g. Transitional provisions:
Given the requests of municipalities and citizens and in order to provide sufficient time for the optimal implementation of the real estate fire protection regulation within or near forest areas amended by the relevant Joint Ministerial Decision for The extension of the deadlines for submitting the data as follows:
a) The preparation of the risk assessment and the submission of a technical report, until 10/05/2024; /06/2024,
(c) For settlements, the OTAs complete the risk assessment form and the technical exposure to the landscaped zone and any gradation thereof /2024.
The Audit Committees, with the possibility of a synthesis described in the above section E, will carry out sampling of real estate tests within the firefighting period and in any case after the above deadlines for submission of responsible statements of the owners.
