Fires: does the European Mutual Assistance Mechanism make it possible to deal with several large-scale fires at the same time?

The planet is on fire. And with it its forests. The latest example is Greece, which has been fighting since Monday, July 17 against violent fires still active west of Athens and on the island of Rhodes, further south. In all, several thousand hectares have burned in the country in what remains a "huge battle against the flames". To deal with this, Greece activated the European Civil Protection Mechanism on Tuesday. “Romania, Slovakia and Poland have responded,” Yannis Artopios, spokesman for the Greek fire brigade, announced on Wednesday.

In all, 149 firefighters in 49 vehicles will come from Poland, 50 firefighters from Romania and 31 from Slovakia. This European civil protection mechanism extends to the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU), to which are added nine other States (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine). It makes it possible to pool land and air forces, particularly in the fight against fires.

In 2019, the EU modernized its mechanism through the creation of rescEU, an emergency “European capacity reserve”, financed by Brussels, and composed in particular of Canadair and water bomber helicopters. France, for example, activated it twice in the summer of 2022 during the mega forest fires in Gironde. But is the European mechanism cut out to withstand these multiple simultaneous large-scale fires?

European resources will therefore support the several hundred Greek firefighters already present. “200 firefighters in reinforcement are an important help”, estimates Philippe Besson, president and founder of the NGO Pompier urgence internationale. According to him, it is complex for “each country to fend for itself” in the face of a major fire.

This year, the air capacities of the European system have however been multiplied by two before the summer, rising to 28 aircraft. These devices are mainly funded by the EU, but remain under the authority of the resident countries. In detail, these are 10 Canadair, 14 light amphibious aircraft - smaller than Canadair - and 4 helicopters. By way of comparison, France has 47 aircraft this year, including 12 Canadair. Two Italian and two French Canadairs have been deployed in Greece, according to the European Commission. "It only moves the ability to resist upwards," said Sébastien Lahaye, a former firefighter now head of Warucene, a consulting company that protects against the risk of new fires.

The whole question remains to know at what rate the European means will progress, in the face of a fire risk which increases from year to year, because of global warming. “We want to maintain a level of resources at least as high each year as the previous one, but the objective remains to increase in power”, indicates the European Commission. A dozen firefighting planes could also be purchased by the EU in 2027. “We are in negotiations, nothing is done”, we slip on the side of Brussels.

In the meantime, the European Union had prepositioned - ahead of the fire period - firefighters in certain Member States, depending on the risk of fire. 205 firefighters - including 20 French - had notably been placed in Greece. “The prepositioning allows you to be even more reactive in the face of emerging fires to prevent them from becoming extreme”, deciphers Sébastien Lahaye. "If the risk becomes too high in the countries of origin, I have no doubt that a repatriation will take place," he adds. So many resources that would no longer be available to the country where they had been prepositioned, if it too were to suffer a major fire.

This is what seems to worry the specialists. “Last year, it burned in France, this year it is – for the moment – ​​more in Greece, observes Philippe Besson. Several fires at the same time would limit the effectiveness of the mechanism and the fight would become more complicated”. “Even if this help is obviously useful, it is not additional firefighters who will put out megafires”, completes Sébastien Lahaye for his part. Proof of this is in Canada where the flames seem unstoppable despite significant international support. For the time being, the fires in Greece have not been qualified as megafires.

These are all the limits of a mechanism that nevertheless remains valuable. "You have to admit that there is a time when the limits will be reached," said Sébastien Lahaye. So where to put that slider? Hard to say according to these experts. "That worries me. This is a real problem,” says Philippe Besson.

Should this happen, the only solution would be to "let the forest burn" for lack of resources. “We would then have to focus on sensitive points such as the protection of homes,” he warns. Last summer, in parallel with the Gironde fires, Spain and Portugal were also ablaze, destroying several thousand hectares. Portugal had also activated the European mechanism to fight against these fires, at the same time as the Gironde.

More generally, the European Civil Protection Mechanism has been activated 65 times for forest fires over the past ten years, says the European Commission, including eleven times in 2022. So what solutions? "Awareness of forest fires is insufficient and it is a real lever", wants to believe Philippe Besson. “New technologies are emerging and make it possible to better anticipate the risk of fire,” he also believes. These include sensors positioned in the forest giving particular indications on humidity and wind strength or even four-legged robots equipped with thermal cameras. This would allow each state to adapt its device to kill the fire as soon as it appears. And therefore to avoid the emergence of uncontrollable megafires.