Minister Robles meets Military Emergency Unit

The Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, has visited the Headquarters of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), at the Torrejon de Ardoz Air Base, Madrid, to review the fight against forest fires that have blighted many Spanish provinces this summer.

Robles, who has accompanied by the Secretary of State for Defence, Esperanza Casteleiro, was met by the head of the UME, Lieutenant General Luis Manuel Martinez Meijide, his second in command, Major General of the Air Force Jose Manuel Cuesta, as well as by the head of the Torrejon Air Base, Brigadier General of the Air Force Pablo Guillen.

Robles said, “Wherever the UME arrives, a lot of tranquillity reaches the citizens.”

She also expressed, “my appreciation and gratitude and that of all Spaniards for their great work.”

Since the summer campaign began on June 15, teams and battalions of the UME and 43 Group have participated in the extinction of nine fires in Spain, the most recent in Avila, Las Palmas and La Rioja, and in two abroad, in Turkey and Greece.

Between August 2 and 10, UME soldiers, together with the crews of two Bombardier CL-415 amphibious aircraft operated by the 43rd Group, were part of the Spanish team that collaborated, first in Turkey and later in Greece, in the extinction of the devastating forest fires that devastated the eastern Mediterranean under the auspices of the European Emergency Response Mechanism.

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