EU allocates funds to expand rescEU firefighting fleet

The 12 planes will be hosted by six EU member states – Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain – and will be operated as part of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (rescEU).

The fleet expansion will be used to extinguish wildfires across the EU, especially during the dry summer months, when large-scale wildfires are becoming a growing threat, particularly in southern Europe.

The acquisitions will continue the rescEU firefighting fleet’s rapid expansion – in 2023, it comprised 24 fixed-wing craft and four helicopters, more than double the 13 aircraft flown in 2022.

The news follows the signing of contracts by the governments of Greece and Croatia for the purchase of their share of the new fixed-wing fleet with the Canadian Commercial Corporation, on 24 and 25 March, respectively.

“I congratulate Croatia as well as Greece, who were the earliest to sign into reality the first planes of what will form a new generation of European firefighting aerial capacity,” said Janez Lenarčič, European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management. “And I thank Canada for facilitating these agreements with the company concerned resuming production of these very much-needed planes.”