As Europe prepares for the next season of forest firesthe EU is taking important steps to intensify firefighting efforts and protect communities, by pre-positioning firefighting teams and establishing a fleet of firefighting aircraft.
Preparing to fight forest fires
Firstly, a strategic pre-positioning of 556 firefighters from twelve countries will take place this summer in key locations in Europe, including France, Greece, Portugal and Spain, ready to help local fire departments combat the forest fires.
This proactive measure strengthens Europe’s preparedness to fight against forest fires and mitigate their devastating effects on lives, homes and the environment, and highlights the EU’s strong solidarity in tackling this type of crisis.
Secondly, the EU has also assembled an air fleet of rescEU dedicated to the extinction of forest fires for this summer, consisting of twenty-eight aircraft and four helicopters, stationed in ten Member States. More specifically, the fleet will include:
- four medium amphibious aircraft, two light aircraft and one helicopter from Greece
- two medium amphibious aircraft from Croatia
- two medium amphibious aircraft and two light aircraft from Italy
- two medium amphibious aircraft from Spain
- four medium amphibious aircraft and one helicopter from France
- four light aircraft from Sweden
- two light aircraft from Portugal
- of Czech helicopters
- two light aircraft from Cyprus
- two light aircraft from Germany
The Commission has also allocated a total of €600 million to facilitate the acquisition of twelve new firefighting aircraft in the future, which will be distributed among six EU Member States. In addition, it will also finance several helicopters to reinforce the aerial fleet for extinction of forest fires in member countries.
The prior positioning of firefighters and the acquisition of more fire extinguishing aircraft forest fires They highlight the EU’s commitment to strengthening its capacity to respond effectively to forest fires, in particular during the coming summer months.
Context
The EU ensures a coordinated approach to prevention, preparedness and response to forest fires when these exceed national response capabilities. When the magnitude of a forest fire overwhelms a country’s response capabilities, it can request help through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
Once activated, the EU Emergency Response Coordination Center coordinates and finances the aid provided by the EU Member States and the other ten participating States in the MPCU (Iceland, Norway, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro , Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine) through spontaneous offers.
Furthermore, the European Civil Protection Reserve has been created to make a critical number of civil protection capabilities readily available to enable a stronger and more coherent collective response.
Its objective is to provide a faster, better coordinated and more effective European response to natural hazards and man-made disasters. It brings together resources from the twenty-seven Member States and participating States, ready for deployment as soon as possible.
In the event that the emergency requires additional assistance to save lives, the firefighting reserve forest fires rescEU intervenes to provide additional capabilities to deal with disasters in Europe. It includes a fleet of firefighting planes and helicopters, medical evacuation planes and a reserve of medical supplies and field hospitals that can respond to health emergency situations. RescEU It acts by granting Member States subsidies to acquire capabilities, over whose deployment the European Commission has the final say.
The Emergency Response Coordination Center also monitors the evolution of forest fires with the support of early warning systems such as the European Fire Information System. Forest fireswhile the EU’s Copernicus satellite emergency mapping service complements operations by providing detailed information from space.