NGO groups have called on President Stevo Pendarovski to order the deployment of the army to fight the air pollution, which is becoming a greater problem by the day, as temperatures dip and citizens fire up the furnaces.

Each day we witness the burning of dump sites and forest fires which endanger the health of our citizens. For that purpose we demand that the army and the police are used along with other institutions and inspectors to actively patrol and prevent burning of fires. We need night patrols at the critical points in the capital Skopje and across the Republic at the sites where fires are most often ste. They need to educated the citizens about the harmful effects of fires, an association of NGO groups wrote to Pendarovski.