00:00Europe is burning again and this time the EU says is ready like never before but is that true and
00:08are the EU's measures what Europe really needs to combat wildfires? We have regular wake-up call
00:14and this one is maybe the biggest since a couple of years. Portugal, France and Greece activated
00:21the EU's civil protection mechanism this July as wildfires tore through their territory. France
00:26utilized four rescue planes from Sweden and Cyprus. Portugal utilized 118 firefighters and 45
00:34vehicles from Spain plus three rescue planes from Italy and Spain. As of July 29, 2026, the EU has
00:41recorded 1,407 wildfires burning 434,976 hectares and releasing an estimated 17.98 million tons of
00:53CO2 according to the European forest fire information system. That's below the 2025's record season but still
01:00well above the 20-year average. And forecasters say the danger isn't over. EFIS puts Western Europe at the
01:08highest fire risk level with extreme conditions across Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece. So this
01:16summer, the Commission says it deployed its largest ever wildfire response with 777 firefighters from 14
01:24countries. Repositioned in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, 22 firefighting planes and five
01:31helicopters ready before the fires even started. This is the highest level of participation since the
01:37program began in 2022. And there's also EFIS, the satellite system that forecasts fire risk up to 10 days ahead
01:45and
01:45rescue EU, the EU's emergency reserve of aircraft which is sent in when national firefighters are overwhelmed. The EU is
01:53also
01:54building permanent capacity for next time. A new regional firefighting station opens in Cyprus this year with room for six
02:00aircrafts. Think of it as a ladder. National response first, EU pooled support second and rescue as a last resort.
02:10The EU funds and
02:11coordinates but on the ground, each country still leads its own response. Behind the emergency response sits a slower
02:19policy shift to the EU's Forest Strategy 2030, which is pushing prevention, resilience and 3 billion new trees by 2030.
02:27But
02:27Brussels cannot rewrite national forest law or bring more firefighters on its own. What it can do is fund prevention,
02:34share risk
02:35data and move help across borders fast before a fire becomes a disaster. And as heat waves arrive earlier and
02:43hit harder each year, that share response may be the only thing stopping another record-breaking summer of fires. For
02:50the full
02:50the full story with our in-depth explainer on euronews.com
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