The central remembrance event marking the 15th anniversary of the incident in which 12 firefighters were killed in a wildfire was held on Tuesday on the Adriatic island of Kornat.
Various delegations laid wreaths and said prayers on the site of the infamous 2007 incident, which is to this day the deadliest peacetime disaster in Croatia’s modern history. Also, fire sirens at fire brigades around the country sounded 60 seconds at exactly 3:25 pm, the time of the event.
On 30 August 2007 a group of 13 firefighters were dropped by helicopter to to an uninhabited island in the Kornati archipelago, off the coast of Sibenik, to put out a raging wildfire. Soon after landing, they were surrounded by flames, and six firefighters aged 17-42 were killed on the scene. The remaining seven were airlifted to a hospital in Sibenik, but six of them, aged 19-52, succumbed to their injuries.
The sole survivor was Frane Lucic, who was 23 at the time.
A column of the victims’ colleagues, friends and family members and a variety of local and state officials attended the event on Tuesday. Chief fire commander, Slavko Tucakovic, held a speech in which he said the firefighters who perished would “never be forgotten.”
“Fifteen years have passed, and (every time) this day dawns, it is always sad, because we remember our heroes from Kornati. We will never forget them. We don’t want this to happen to anyone again,” he said.
The event later sparked lots of controversy over the necessity of sending firefighters to an uninhabited island where the wildfire eventually died out on its own, procedures allowing the use of under-aged volunteers to put out dangerous fires, and the exact nature of the event in which the entire group was almost wiped out in an instant.
The commander which dispatched the group to Kornat was tried for negligence and acquitted, twice, in 2013 and in 2013. In a separate case Lucic filed a lawsuit against the city of Sibenik and the Croatian government, seeking damages for the massive third-degree burns and injuries he had sustained. In 2019, he was awarded some €1 million in a settlement to cover damages, and was also given a monthly allowance of 5,000 kuna (€666).
“I am not competent to speak about the cause of this tragedy but we are all aware of the consequences. Some things are vague and unclear, and that troubles us all, especially those who lost their loved ones… We need this culture of remembrance, so that something similar does not happen again in the future, so that we do not lose good, hardworking, and honest people in this way,” said Prefect of the Sibenik-Knin County, Marko Jelic.
