The European Commission proposed this Tuesday to take concrete steps towards the creation of a European body of forest firefighters, in order to strengthen cooperation among member states and have teams ready to intervene "all year round, not just in summer," after a campaign in which nearly 700,000 hectares have burned across the European Union.
"The goal is to move towards European firefighters who do not receive attention only in summer," said the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Hadja Lahbib, during a debate in the plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg (France) focused on wildfires and other extreme weather phenomena recorded this summer in Europe.
The commissioner justified this initiative by noting that "in some countries, 80% of firefighters are volunteers," which has led the Commission to initiate specific work, including organizing a meeting of "young volunteers from across the EU" in Warsaw (Poland), "with the aim of building a European body, harmonizing knowledge and practices, and exchanging experience."
Lahbib specified that, only in the current summer season, the entire community block has deployed 777 volunteer firefighters from 14 countries. Nevertheless, she emphasized the urgency of "doing more in terms of prevention," for example, promoting that the Twenty-Seven participate in preventive deployments ahead of the next fire season.
Nearly 700,000 hectares devastated in the EU
In her speech, Lahbib warned that 2026 has once again left a "very difficult" summer in Europe due to heatwaves and droughts, which have significantly increased the risk of fires and have generated impacts on health, economic activity, and agriculture.
According to the data presented by the commissioner, so far this year nearly 700,000 hectares have burned and 16 member states have recorded burned areas above their historical national averages.
In light of this scenario, she defended the need to strengthen prevention policies against extreme weather phenomena, reminding that emergency response should be the "last line of defense," and announced that the Commission will present an integrated climate resilience framework in the autumn.
Despite the magnitude of the fires, Lahbib has emphasized that all requests for assistance made this year through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism have been addressed, ten within European territory and another two outside the continent.
In total, the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) has managed the deployment of 40 aerial assets and 18 ground teams, while the European strategic reserve 'rescEU' has had an operational fleet of 18 planes and five helicopters this summer.
Lahbib has advocated for continuing to increase these capabilities and has reminded that there are four new aircraft pending delivery, in addition to twelve amphibious planes from Canada --the Canadairs--, while defending the promotion of the manufacturing of this type of aircraft in Europe to strengthen autonomy and response capacity against wildfires.