Ljubljana - The compensation for firefighters, announced by Prime Minister Robert Golob last week as thousands of Slovenia's voluntary firefighters had been battling the biggest wildfire in the country's history, will not be paid out to individual firefighters but to firefighting and other voluntary associations, Golob said on Friday.

Following a meeting with NGOs today, he said the compensations had never been promised to individuals. The funds will be paid out to association which had taken part in the massive effort to extinguish the fire because this is the only way for the payouts to be tax-free.

The financial compensation has been set at EUR 63 a day per volunteer working up to eight hours in the intervention and at EUR 93.5 a day per volunteer logging more than eight hours.

Golob said the compensations for associations would be calculated based on the number of persons and number of days they had participated in firefighting at Kras.

Golob explained this following warnings that special monetary rewards for firefighters would mean the beginning of the end of Slovenia's voluntary firefighting tradition.

The government said last week that the funds transferred to associations would be distributed among firefighters who had taken part in the intervention.