EU to double firefighting capacity before 2023 fire season begins – Ten light amphibious aircraft and three helicopters to be added to fleet
The Commissioner for Crisis Management, Mr. Yanes Lenarcic, and the Portuguese Minister of the Interior, Mr. José Luis Carneiro, are participating today in the opening session of the workshop of the European Civil Protection Mechanism on “Lessons learned from the forest fires of 2022″.
As Commissioner Lenarcic pointed out, “Each fire season offers us new lessons, new discoveries and new opportunities to strengthen our common work. The 2022 fire season broke many records across Europe, and showed us that we need to learn three lessons: we need to step up fire prevention, improve our preparedness and strengthen firefighting capabilities across Europe. We know that there will be new fires this summer and the EU is taking concrete steps to strengthen our capacities ahead of this season. We are currently building up our firefighting aircraft inventory. As President von der Leyen confirmed in September, the EU will double its firefighting capacity before the start of the 2023 fire season. We will get ten more light amphibious aircraft and three helicopters to add to our fleet.”
The 2022 fire season saw the highest number of fires since 2006. These fires burned a very large area across Europe, even in countries that do not normally face such challenges, such as the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovenia. In total, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism was activated 11 times, mobilizing 33 aircraft, 8 helicopters, around 350 firefighters and other firefighting equipment.
During his visit to Portugal, Commissioner Lenarcic also discussed humanitarian issues with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, Mr. João Gomes Cravinho, the Deputy Minister of Cooperation, Mr. Francisco Andre and the Vice-President of the Camões Institute, Ms. Cristina Moniz.
Watch the joint press conference of Commissioner Lenarcic and Minister Carneiro live on EbS+ at 1:30 Greek time.
Lena Flitzani
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