Is the EU failing to prevent forest fires?

More than a cardinal hectares of EU forest burned this year by the extremity of August, according to information provided by nan Copernicus satellite, utilized for Earth observation. This is almost 5 times larger than nan area affected by wood fires successful nan EU nan erstwhile year. 

The astir affected personnel states were Portugal pinch 3% of territory burned, Cyprus pinch 2,3% and Spain pinch 0,8%. 

In recent years, nan European Commission has positioned standby teams managed by nan Emergency Response Coordination Center, to assistance personnel states. In 2025, a excavation of 22 planes and 650 firefighters was made disposable by 14 personnel states.   

"The extremity present is to guarantee faster consequence time, but besides alteration valuable underground knowledge sharing, which is peculiarly applicable because of ambiance change. Wildfires are progressively spreading to areas of Europe wherever they didn't hap truthful much, specified arsenic Northern and Eastern Europe," said Alice Tidey, who's been covering the issue for Euronews. 

Activists and scientists declare that governments still neglect to prioritise prevention. MEP Catarina Martins, from nan Left governmental group astatine nan European Parliament, agrees pinch that appraisal and is particularly worried that agriculture and agrarian improvement will beryllium downgraded successful nan EU's agelong word fund for 2028-2034. 

"There is nary effort for adjustment of agriculture nor an adjustment of forestry policy, nor territorial cohesion. What is being decided connected nan European Union's upcoming financial frameworks tends to worsen this situation. We are spending and promising to walk billions connected defence industries that will not really protect nan European population," said Martins, who sits connected nan Parliament's situation committee. 

The European Commission costs respective projects for semipermanent wildfire resilience and established an Action Plan successful 2022, but location has been disapproval from nan European Court of Auditors (ECA) complete really immoderate governments person utilized them. 

"ECA  flagged that a batch of the decisions are made utilizing wide out-of-date data. So successful Greece, for instance, which is traditionally very impacted by wildfire, nan database of areas prone to wildfire is 45 years old," according to Euronews' Alice Tidey. 

"Let's remember that Europe is nan continent that is warming nan fastest. This isn't thing acold away, nan risks are here: we'll person floods again, we'll person fires again, we'll person this scares again. And therefore, ambiance argumentation really cannot beryllium abandoned," the MEP added. 

In nan meantime, nan The EU has  promised to strengthen its firefighting capabilities to assist countries astir affected. Between 2026 and 2029, a caller fleet of 12 planes and 5 helicopters, financed by nan European Commission, will beryllium permanently deployed successful France, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Croatia. 

Watch nan video here! 

Journalist: Isabel Marques da Silva 

Content production: Pilar Montero López 

Video production: Zacharia Vigneron 

Graphism: Loredana Dumitru 

Editorial coordination: Ana Lázaro Bosch and Jeremy Fleming-Jones