When fires broke out in Slovenia in July 2022, the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism sprang into action. EU satellite mapping determined the progression and direction of the fires and Austrian helicopter pilot Josef Samonig used this to decide where to focus his firefighting efforts.
The world is suffering from extreme weather – and Slovenia is no exception. When fires broke out in July 2022 in Miren Kostanjevica, they spread fast and threatened to burn out of control.
Slovenia asked for help through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and it responded swiftly, mobilising:
from Austria, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Slovakia
from the rescEU reserve in Croatia
from a Croatian forest firefighting team
Slovenia also received help from the EU Civil Protection Mechanism in August 2023, after catastrophic floods which affected 2/3 of the country. In response, the country received offers of assistance from 10 EU Member States (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden) and another country participating in the Mechanism (Bosnia and Herzegovina). In total, 25 excavators, 39 vehicles, 11 dump trucks, 14 bridges, 4 helicopters and about 300 personnel from European countries were deployed to support the emergency efforts.
Cutting edge technology maps where fires will burn next
Fighting fires is extremely dangerous. A change in wind direction can send flames towards firefighters and rescue workers, putting their lives at risk.
That’s where experts like Jesús San-Miguel-Ayanz can help. He’s the leader of the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) and Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) teams at the EU’s science service in Ispra, Italy.
“We run fire behaviour models. With them, we know where a fire will be next, if it is likely to spread towards villages or protected nature areas,” says San-Miguel-Ayanz.
This helps firefighters plan their next move and stay out of harm’s way.
They also use factors such as lack of rainfall, dryness of vegetation, temperature and wind speed. These factors help identify the areas in which, if there is a fire, the fire will grow and become very difficult to extinguish. This helps countries decide where to pre-position firefighting equipment so they will be prepared to respond.
"They cannot be everywhere in a given country, so they should be positioned according to the level of fire danger,” explains San-Miguel-Ayanz.
Countries also use this information to decide whether they need to call for help from the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC), which coordinates the delivery of assistance from the 27 EU countries and 10 participating states in the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
Flying into the fire
After Slovenia activated the Mechanism in July 2022, Josef Samonig, an Austrian helicopter pilot with the police force, arrived ready to fight the wildfires tearing through Miren Kostanjevica.
Samonig and the other pilots had daily briefings with the ground operation manager, who received information about the wildfires from EFFIS, GWIS, and other organisations.
They provided updates on the location of the fires, wind direction, weather conditions and if wildfires were moving towards inhabited villages. After the briefings, Samonig would fly for 7 hours a day, dropping water onto the fires.
“Over 5 days, we flew for 30 hours and dropped about 200,000 litres of water. It was dangerous because I was flying with several helicopters in a small area, there was a lot of smoke and visibility was very bad, like flying in heavy fog. But by the second day, things were already improving, there was less smoke,” said Samonig.
For Samonig, collaboration is critical as climate-related weather events become more extreme.
By working together, we can be ready to alert people when climate related disasters are coming, to respond to extreme weather, and to secure the area so life can return to normal as quickly as possible.
Disasters increase from year to year and it’s very important that specialists in different professions work together.
Preparing for the future
Wildfires are becoming more frequent and more intense. In response, the EU is scaling up its firefighting capabilities so we will be prepared for the future.
For instance, ahead of the 2023 wildfire season, the rescEU firefighting air fleet had been reinforced and included 28 firefighting planes and helicopters.
In preparation for each wildfire season, the EU is also financing and facilitating the prepositioning of firefighters in areas at risk of wildfires. This means that they will be ready and can act immediately if fire breaks out, stopping it before it spreads out of control and limiting the area burnt.
These resources are already being used to help overstretched national firefighting services cope with unprecedented wildfires.
In summer 2023, there were devastating wildfires in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, and Tunisia. Only in Greece’s Alexandroupolis region, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism coordinated the biggest ever rescEU aerial firefighting operation.
Additionally, the Commission has launched the Wildfire Peer Review Assessment Framework, a tool to support wildfire risk management capacity building and good practice exchange.
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