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To counteract the increased risk of fire, the EU relies on its civil protection mechanism. Greece, the last victim of the fire, has drawn on this system, which pools the resources of member states.
The summer of 2023 was to have devastating consequences for European forests. According to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), about 120,000 hectares of forest burned on the continent in the first six months of the year, up from 80,000 hectares in 2022. The heatwave currently sweeping the northern hemisphere, a symptom of global warming, has only accelerated things. On July 17, after several days of extreme temperatures, Greece finally caught fire. Several fires broke out near Athens and on the tourist island of Rhodes.
Given the scale of the disaster, Greece activated the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) on July 18. Set up by the European Commission in 2001, this system aims to pool civil protection resources from EU countries and nine third countries (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iceland, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine). Within hours, Greece received help from four Canadair closely