Wildfire prevention: How Europe plans to handle blazes in the years ahead

Scientists are predicting longer-burning wildfires in future decades. As Greece and Italy hit new records, does Europe need a new fire prevention strategy?

Wildfires across the European Union have laid waste to approximately 260,000 hectares of land so far this year, damaging infrastructure, prompting evacuations, and displacing thousands of people.

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What do the experts say?

According to the European Forest Fire Information System, more than 52,000 hectares of land have been destroyed by wildfires in Greece so far this year. This figure has surpassed the yearly average of 43,500 hectares, calculated between 2006 and 2022. 

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So what is Europe doing to mitigate the risk of wildfires?

The European Commission announced last week it was going to purchase a fleet of 'Canadair' jets to boost Europe's firefighting capacity but these planes will not be ready until 2027.

"We can't keep just throwing money at the problem", Pronto added.

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Fuel modelling

Surveying vegetation was a huge part of this process, explained Viegas as highly flammable trees, particularly eucalyptus and pine varieties, heavily support the spread of fires and jeopardise the effectiveness of fewer fuel breaks. Peat bogs are also a problem as peat fires generate a lot of smoke and can burn for days weeks or even months if left unattended.

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