The European Commission announced today that it has mobilized emergency support to deal with severe forest fires in Greece, which activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.

“The European Commission’s Emergency Response Coordination Center (ERCC) immediately mobilized aerial and ground firefighting services from several European countries that are part of the Civil Protection Mechanism to assist Greece. This support includes two rescEU firefighting planes from Italy, one rescEU helicopter from France and one helicopter offered by Serbia. In addition, ground firefighting teams have been deployed from the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Serbia and Romania, while Romanian, Maltese and Moldovan firefighters, already deployed in Greece, were among the first to battle the fires in Greece. “, states the Commission’s announcement.

The representative of the Commission, responsible for crisis management issues, Uvari Balas, during today’s briefing of the Commission, stated that the Emergency Response Coordination Center, acted “in a precautionary spirit”. This means that even before the Greek government submitted a request for additional assistance, the firefighters who were already on standby on the ground moved to the Attica area and contributed to the extinguishing efforts, along with the domestic firefighters. This is a tactic that the Coordination Center has been following for three years, explained the representative of the Commission, noting that for precautionary reasons, there are firefighters on alert, “in countries or in areas where we believe that forest fires are likely to break out.”

This year, around 80 firefighters from Moldova, Malta and Romania are on alert, some of whom have contributed to the efforts to put out the fires in Attica, as early as Sunday 11 August. As Balas Uivari explained, the Greek government came to an assessment that additional assistance would be needed and its request for assistance was received by the Commission early Monday morning. Then the Emergency Response Coordination Center transferred the request to the EU member states and a few hours later there was a full response to Greece’s request.

It is noted that in addition to Greece, the Commission announced that it has mobilized emergency aid to deal with fires in Albania, which includes a multipurpose military plane from Romania with a capacity of 6 tons of water.

The Commission emphasizes that it is closely monitoring the forest fire situation and stands ready to provide further assistance as required.

As part of its preparedness measures for this year’s fire season, the EU has strengthened rescEU and the European Civil Protection Centre, which now includes 28 planes and 4 helicopters stationed in 10 member states.

In addition, during the fire season, more than 540 firefighters from 12 countries are in key locations across Europe, ready to assist local fire forces when necessary.