Greece activates the EU Civil Protection Mechanism for fighting forest fires

published on Monday, August 29, 2011 under Environmnet

The European Commission's Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) delivered a coordinated EU operation with aerial assets provided by Spain, France and Italy following the request made by Greece and Albania in fighting forest fires.

Greece has requested urgent aerial assistance for fight forest fires raging in Alexandroupolis (North-East of the country) and therefore it has activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. Following this request, Albania has also asked for assistance. Greece has suffered large-scale forest fires in recent days. On 25th August, the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) of the European Commission and the participating states to the Mechanism received a request from Greece for three aerial fire fighting modules (i.e. a total of 6 Canadair CL-415).

The three first European countries willing to send assistance have been Spain, France and Italy. With regard to this circumstance, Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis response stated that the three countries, Spain, France and Italy, have given a real-time example of European solidarity. The Monitoring and Information Centre is helping to coordinate the European assistance in the crucial hours and days ahead.

The Civil Protection Mechanism has reacted to more than a hundred disasters worldwide since 2001, among them Hurricane Katrina in the USA (2005), earthquake in China (2008) and Italy (2009), earthquake in Haiti (2010) and earthquake / tsunami in Japan (2011). In the past two forest fire seasons the Civil Protection Mechanism was activated 20 times for forest fires inside and outside Europe. As example, it was activate to evacuate Europeans from Libya. When activated, the Mechanism coordinates the provision of assistance. The European Commission manages the Mechanism through the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC).