{"id":461032,"date":"2026-07-24T16:20:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T14:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/07\/24\/incendi-in-spagna-e-francia-lue-invia-aerei-ed-elicotteri-in-soccorso-col-meccanismo-di-protezione-civile\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T16:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T14:36:14","slug":"wildfires-in-spain-and-france-the-eu-sends-planes-and-helicopters-to-assist-under-the-civil-protection-mechanism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/07\/24\/wildfires-in-spain-and-france-the-eu-sends-planes-and-helicopters-to-assist-under-the-civil-protection-mechanism\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfires in Spain and France: the EU sends planes and helicopters to assist under the Civil Protection Mechanism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 \u201cWe are monitoring the situation with great concern because, following Portugal, fires are now breaking out in France and Spain, and summer has only just begun.\u201d This was stated<\/a> today (24 July) by the European Commission spokesperson, Anna-Kaisa Itkonen<\/strong>, regarding the violent fires in the two countries. The situation has already forced thousands of people to leave their homes, prompting the two governments to declare a national state of emergency<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Spain has requested the activation of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism<\/a>\u2014a European Union instrument established in 2001 to coordinate the rapid and effective response of Member States and other participating countries in the event of natural or man-made disasters\u2014and the Berlaymont Building has mobilised \u201cfour aircraft equipped with Copernicus<\/a> satellite imagery to support the response on the ground,\u201d two of which took off from Greece and two from Italy, as well as 44 Canadair aircraft. <\/p>\n

In explaining how the EU\u2019s civil protection mechanism and rescue service work, the spokesperson emphasised that it is up to the Member States to submit a request for assistance, to which the Commission responds by deploying the Union\u2019s \u201ccommon resources.\u201d According to figures provided by Itkonen, the EU has a \u201cstrategic reserve\u201d comprising 22 aeroplanes and 5 helicopters<\/strong>. In addition, a group of \u201c777 firefighters is pre-positioned in areas and Member States\u201d that are at risk. Itkonen also emphasised that the EU is ready to \u201ctake immediate action and support local firefighting teams,\u201d but that \u201cthe responsibility for tackling forest fires lies with the Member States\u201d and their authorities. <\/p>\n

Regarding the situation in the Bordeaux region of France, the spokesperson announced that \u201cFrance\u2019s request for assistance to activate the European Civil Protection Mechanism was received yesterday.\u201d In addition to the Copernicus satellite service, \u201cwe have deployed two Air Tractor aircraft based in Portugal, a Black Hawk helicopter from Slovakia, another Black Hawk from the Czech Republic, and a Canadian aircraft from Croatia,\u201d she said, adding that the assets are currently deployed mainly in the Gironde region and in N\u00eemes.<\/p>\n

 “Generally speaking, we act in response to requests we receive from Member States, and the fleet at our disposal is part of our response,” she sought to reassure in response to questions about the action to be taken in the event of multiple emergencies and requests for assistance at the same time. Furthermore, \u201cMember States can assist neighbouring countries,\u201d and the EU executive also has \u201ca mechanism that allows us to match requests for help with those able to provide it.\u201d Of course, \u201cwe hope all hell doesn\u2019t break loose, but we are preparing for a serious situation, given that we will be seeing these extreme weather events with greater frequency and they will be more intense and brutal<\/strong>,\u201d<\/strong> she concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 \u201cWe are monitoring the situation with great concern because, following Portugal, fires are now breaking out in France and Spain, and summer has only just begun.\u201d This was stated today (24 July) by the European Commission spokesperson, Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, regarding the violent fires in the two countries. The situation has already forced thousands […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":461014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25712,25774],"tags":[26261,25815,25871,35053,26512,26944,27736,27493,26949,34621,27179,26870],"class_list":["post-461032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-in-brief","tag-canadair","tag-copernicus-and","tag-croatia-en","tag-czechrepublic-en","tag-greece-en","tag-incendi-en","tag-meccanismo-protezione-civile","tag-portugal-en","tag-spain-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":461033,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461032\/revisions\/461033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}