The challenging year of 2021 has identified that international cross border cooperation related to the prevention of and the response to wildfires is more important than ever.
With landscape firefighting missions moving through Europe, there’s no surprise that the pan-European rescEU Commission has recently received a significant investment boost to expand its aerial firefighting capability.
In the Euro-Mediterranean region, larger and more severe wildfires often are difficult to control. Similar trends are observed in other regions of the world with similar climate and vegetation features speak for themselves.
Until a few years ago, the climatic conditions in Central, Western Atlantic, Northern and Eastern Europe were advantageous. The fragmented and intensively cultivated landscapes, forests and protected areas experienced limited numbers of usually small-sized wildfires.
Widespread desiccation of vegetation cover, associated with dramatically lowered soil moisture and water tables, created conditions favourable for wildfires, central and Northern European countries need to adjust to a new reality. This is calling for sharing expertise with other regions of Europe and the world, where experience in fire management methods had evolved over decades.