Firefighters – Image by ELG21 on Pixabay
(BRUSSELS) – The EU’s Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarcic announced Tuesday a doubling of the rescEU aerial firefighting fleet for this year’s wildfire season.
Speaking at the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre, Mr Lenarcic said wildfires had become a pan-European concern, which gravely affected lives, livelihoods and the environment. “In total, 20 EU Member States recorded more burned areas than average in 2022,” he said.
“The wildfire risk expanded to areas that have not previously been exposed, moving well beyond the Mediterranean region. This increase in wildfires requires decisive and prompt action also at EU level.”.
Thanking countries involved in boosting the EU’s response, he called on the EU Member States to also strengthen wildfire preventive action..
rescEU firefighting fleet for 2023
- The rescEU firefighting aircraft reserve includes 24 airplanes and 4 helicopters from 10 Member States:
- Two medium scooping airplanes from Croatia
- Two light planes from Cyprus
- Two helicopters from Czechia
- Two medium scooping airplanes and one helicopter from France
- Two light planes from Germany
- Two medium scooping airplanes, two light planes and one helicopter from Greece
- Two medium scooping airplanes and two light planes from Italy
- Two light planes from Portugal
- Two medium scooping airplanes from Spain
- Four light planes from Sweden
- In addition, Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia will be sending almost 450 firefighters to be prepositioned in France, Greece and Portugal.
Preventive and monitoring measures
Following the calls from EU ministers and the European Parliament, in 2022 the Commission developed also a Wildfire Prevention Action Plan. This action plan is organised around three objectives: 1) improve administrative capacity; 2) improve knowledge; 3) increase investments in wildfire prevention action.
As part of the prevention action plan, the EU is launching today a new Wildfire Peer Review Assessment Methodology. This new tool helps countries assess their capacity to prevent and prepare for wildfires, and supports the exchange of good practices among European countries, within the framework of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
In addition, an Emergency Response Coordination Centre Wildfires Support Team is being created to enable near-real-time monitoring and analysis of the wildfire situation from mid-June to mid-September.
Wildfires: EU response 2023 - guide
