EU boosting firefighting assistance; 323 European firefighters prepositioned in Greece

The European Commission's support for member states during this year's fire season will be boosted, Commission and Greek Fire Department officials said at a technical briefing on Wednesday.

Zacharias

Giakoumis,head of the Communications section of the Directorate-General forEuropean Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG-ECHO),said that the assistance for 2025 is based on three pillars - aerialmeans, prepositioning European firefighters, and providing technicalknow-how to countries that need it.

Some 641firefighters from 14 European countries will be strategically placedon standby at critical high-threat areas in France, Greece, Portugaland Spain to help local firefighters. Some 22 firefighting aircraftand 4 helicopters will be stationed at 10 countries to intervene ifnecessary, Giakoumis said.

Greece in particularwill get 4 amphibian mid-sized aircraft. In addition, the EuropeanCommission is investing significant funds in acquiring 12 newfirefighting airplanes and 5 helicopters. "The first helicoptersare expected to be delivered in 2026, while the first Canadair isexpected to arrive at the end of 2027 or the start of 2028. The firstof these is expected to arrive in Greece, and is under constructionright now," the EU official added.

He also revealedthat the EU's Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) will setup a special support group of 29 fire experts from June 16 toSeptember 19 to follow fire threats and analyse data. The experts, henoted, will include a Greek and a Cypriot colleague.

Support to Greece

Concerningpreventative measures, he said that Greece has significantlybenefited from Civil Protection Mechanism programs, and was one ofthe first to ask to be evaluated for threat, along with Italy andGermany's Bradenburg state. Cooperation between Greece and theEuropean Commission is year round, he said.

On his side, DeputyFire Department Chief Vassilis Bikas, coordinator of the Associationof Fire Department Foreign Missions Officers, presented detailed dataon the prepositioning program of European firefighters that began ona trial basis in Greece in 2022.

This year, he said,a total of 14 countries will participate, 3 of them for the firsttime. Some 641 firefighters will be distributed among Greece, France,and Portugal. Specifically, Greece will receive 50% of Europeanfirefighters, or 323, from July 1 to September 15. The first toarrive will be the Bulgarian firefighters (40 people), based inThessaloniki, ending with Romanian and French firefighters (120 and25, respectively). Another 50 from Austria, 44 from Moldova, and 44from the Czech Republic will be assigned to Patras and Attica.

As Bikas explained,it is the second consecutive year that Greece will sendcorrespondingly a unit of forest operations to France. "We areparticularly happy because this time we shall send our forces to theisland of Corsica. In addition, for three consecutive years, Frenchfirefighters assigned to Greece have come from the particular unitfrom the island of Corsica," he added.

In terms of theprogram's development, Bikas noted that Greece is a destination indemand for European firefighters because is serves as "an openuniversity for forest fires, where both an experienced firefighterand a less experienced one will come here to learn by the side of themore experienced Greek firefighters, fatefully, as we have to facesmall, or large, or very large forest fires on a daily basis."

Bikas also notedthat "Greece has a leading role in the mechanism, as it hasactivated it 13 times to now since 2016, to its benefit, but on theother it has also responded 54 times, and the balance clearly leanstoward our contribution." There is no spare in the fight for theclimate crisis, he noted.

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