Europe's $42 billion effort to fight wildfires is an uphill battle

Europe spends tens of billions of euros each year fighting forest fires, but this has not prevented flames from breaking out again this summer in Greece and other parts of the continent.

This week, fires on the outskirts of Athens have ravaged more than 10,000 hectares of land – about twice the size of Manhattan. The flames forced thousands of people to evacuate throughout the Attica region surrounding the city. More than 700 firefighters, dozens of planes and helicopters, and around 200 fire engines were deployed to extinguish the inferno.

While Greece successfully extinguished the flames this week, the herculean effort shows the uphill battle Europe's firefighters are facing as climate change exacerbates the threat of wildfires. Greece, which is experiencing its worst season in two decades, now has 89 planes and helicopters to fight fires, compared to 61 when the current government came to power in 2019. Still, pressure is mounting on European governments to focus more on prevention as extreme heat and fires become more common due to global warming.

“We do not expect the solution to simply come out of nowhere,” said Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday. “There is still a lot of work to be done in the area of ​​prevention. I think we have laid some important foundations in this regard.”

From early May to August 13 this year, 3,543 forest fires occurred in Greece, compared with 2,344 in the same period in 2023. The government on Friday announced projects worth 4.3 billion euros ($4.7 billion) to mitigate and adapt to climate change, including some new initiatives to protect forests and reduce fire risk.

Wildfires caused at least €4.1 billion in damage to Europe last year, charring around 500,000 hectares of land across the continent. Last summer, Greece experienced the largest forest fire ever recorded in Europe. Spain, Italy and Portugal also suffered significant damage. As the climate crisis escalates, the European Union has increased its firefighting budget, rising by about 35% in five years to €37.8 billion ($42 billion) in 2022. This year, the bloc has put dozens of aircraft and hundreds of firefighters on standby in anticipation of an intense wildfire season.

Even countries in the north like the UK are on wildfire alert due to recent heatwaves this summer. Hina Bokhari, chair of the London Assembly's fire safety committee, said there were fears the fires that darkened parts of the city in 2022 could be repeated.

“If we are not honest and do not admit that climate change is having a massive impact and increasing the potential risk of wildfires even in cities like London, then we will not be prepared for another horrific incident like the one in 2022,” she said.

In April, Greece announced that it was investing in amphibious firefighting aircraft, aerial surveillance drones and other fire detection and extinguishing systems as part of a €2.1 billion procurement program to combat the effects of climate change.

Mitsotakis said an order for firefighting planes from Canada was not being fulfilled as quickly as many would like because the factory where they were manufactured had been closed for years.

“We took the initiative and received a large order from Europe so that the production line could be pushed forward,” he said. “Of course, we have to make do with what we have for the next three years.”

The European Commission also announced that it would increase its aerial firefighting capacity by a further €600 million and has ordered 12 amphibious firefighting aircraft from the Canadian Commercial Corporation. However, the first of these new aircraft are not expected to be delivered until the end of 2027. For this fire season, rescEU, the Union's civil protection mechanism, has deployed more than 20 aircraft in 10 member states.

According to a report published in October 2023 by the Institute for European Environmental Policy, the European Union spends about 90% of its forest fire budget on firefighting rather than prevention.

Theodoros Kolydas, director of the Greek Meteorological Center, said preventive measures could include reforestation with less flammable trees. Greece, for example, should replace its highly flammable pine forests with oaks, he said.

Other experts believe that the expansion of cities into the forests is also a cause of the problem and must be stopped. More than a third of the forest area of ​​Attica, a region that includes the entire metropolitan area of ​​Athens, has burned in the last eight years.

Still, the fires in Greece this week could have been much worse without the prevention measures and technology introduced this year. Despite the dangers posed by this week's fires, there was only one fatality. A message alert system introduced in 2019 likely helped prevent further deaths. The use of drones has also helped detect fires that are likely to get out of control.

“This is a comprehensive effort at a time of great climate crisis that we are all experiencing,” said Mitsotakis. “We must constantly improve. And from every failure of ours or from every fire that escapes, [we must] We always try to learn what we can do better.”

Photo: A firefighter tries to control a forest fire near Athens on August 12, 2024. Photo credit: Nick Paleologos/Bloomberg

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disaster natural disasters forest fires Europe