Mediterranean wildfires offer lessons — and warnings — for Europe

Responses differed in each country. Some relied on a domestic firefighting plane fleet; others called for help. Wealthier nations had more elaborate evacuation and response plans than their poorer counterparts in North Africa. For experts, though, it all pointed to a frightening new reality: Wildfires are getting too severe, too frequent and persistent, and raging over too vast an area to contain without robust prevention measures. And the risk is spreading.

“Southern Europe — Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy — they struggle with wildfire; but as global warming continues, we’re talking about wildfires in the forests of Germany, Austria, Slovenia,” said Craig Clements, director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San José State University. “It’s happening here. Europe knows it’s going to happen. They’re preparing for it.”

As wildfires intensify, nations at risk are locked in a game of resource catch-up. Yet experts agree that there are limits to those efforts; no one country will have enough resources to battle the fires on their own.

The Mediterranean climate makes its land fertile for wildfires — wet winters allow vegetation to grow; hot, dry summers turn it into a tinder box.

Series of devastating wildfires have shaken Europe and the surrounding Mediterranean basin. In 2017, they killed 66 people in Portugal. In 2018, they engulfed the seaside Greek town of Mati, leaving more than 100 dead. August blazes in Algeria in 2021 killed 90, and there have been dozens of summer fire fatalities in the years since.

These events have forced a reckoning in the region, but resources still vary greatly.

Algeria acquired its first firefighting plane this year. Italy has a fleet of at least 19.

After the fatal 2021 blazes in Algeria, civilians blamed the government for the steep death toll. “Since yesterday, we have not seen a single police officer or gendarme!” Fethi, a volunteer in the northern Algerian region of Tizi Ouzou, told Al Jazeera. “No one came and instructed or helped us evacuate.”

Algeria has steep-hilled, hard-to-reach communities that make it particularly vulnerable to deadly fires, said António José Bento Gonçalves, director of the civil protection and territory management program at University of Minho in Portugal.

Algeria has bolstered its capabilities, but is still forced to make hard choices in the face of large-scale fires: “protecting people and goods, not allowing [them] to fight the progression of the forest fire,” Gonçalves said.

Neighboring Tunisia has worked to upgrade its response plan, including collaborating with experts on a new system to monitor vegetation dryness and meteorological trends, according to Florent Mouillot, a researcher of climate change and fires at France’s Institute of Research for Development, but “all this has a maintenance cost that the current economy could hardly sustain.” The same is true for Algeria, which is much larger and sees less international cooperation.

Greece is seen as a leader in the region in terms of wildfire response. But there are gaps there, too.

When every day somewhere is a climate record

Clements — speaking on a work visit to Greece — said what he learned as a visiting scientist to the National Observatory of Athens “is that they are way behind in terms of fire fighting technologies and utilizing meteorology and fire science.”

Only after the deadly Mati fires did Greece formalize collaboration between its forest and fire services, uniting prevention and suppression. And only last year did the country hire its first group of dedicated fire meteorologists.

“I’ve given congressional testimony about why what we do [in the United States] is horrible. And what we’re doing is way better than what they’re doing,” Clements said of Greece’s preparedness and response.

“I think they’re 20 years behind, at least 10 … in terms of monitoring,” Clements said, citing conversations with his Greek counterparts. “They need this stuff that we take for granted in the U.S.,” he continued, naming sophisticated early detection and monitoring systems as examples. “Greece doesn’t have that — and you know, Greece is kind of leading Europe.”

Preparing for the ‘monsters’

Theodore Giannaros, a fire meteorologist and associate researcher at the National Observatory of Athens, said “the entire way” the region deals with extreme fires needs to change.

“We need to understand that often these monsters are almost impossible to be stopped — even with increased capacity,” Giannaros said. “It’s not just a problem of resources, equipment and manpower. Because when you get two, three, four large wildfire events, I’m not sure if any fire suppression mechanism around the world could deal” with that.

Giannaros believes the emphasis should instead be on preventive mitigation measures, including early-warning systems that allow for interventions “before they become monsters.”

It’s not just hot. Climate anomalies are emerging around the globe.

But funding for such initiatives continues to lag: “Wildfire suppression spending in many wildfire-prone countries is still up to six times higher than the recorded risk prevention spending,” according to a 2023 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

And proposed legislation aimed at developing an E.U.-wide forest observation framework has been delayed as some governments argue that forest management is a domestic matter.

Portugal stands out in Europe for its forward-thinking approach. Before the deadly 2017 wildfires, only 20 percent of its firefighting budget went toward prevention; now, prevention and suppression spending are near parity. The country collaborates closely with researchers, who collect live data and evaluate how to best contain the wildfires during the high season. They also do prescribed burns — small controlled fires managed by experts — which are uncommon and restricted in other parts of Europe.

“We have available scientific knowledge, we have available services and tools, but unfortunately these are not exploited to the full extent,” Giannaros said.

The limits of collective action

As fires increase in frequency and intensity, regional support systems are evolving.

Using the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism, countries in need can ask the bloc to request support from its member states. The bloc has its own fleet of aircraft that can be used to support firefighting efforts, under the rescEU program. But of the 24 planes and four helicopters stationed across the continent, only two are top of the line. Procurement is underway to expand the number of helicopters to 12 by 2030.

“This new rescEU fleet will then be the core of E.U.’s own capacities for the wildfire seasons, which would complement national response capacities and ad hoc solidarity expressed by countries sending planes via the E.U. Civil Protection Mechanism,” said Balazs Ujvari, a spokesman for the European Commission.

In 2021, the E.U.’s Civil Protection Mechanism was activated seven times to help fight forest fires. In 2022, the number rose to 12. This year, the bloc has already been called upon to support civil defense crews in Canada, Greece, Italy and Tunisia, with most of August — traditionally the worst month for wildfires — still to come.

“We have been able to mobilize assistance in response to the overwhelming majority of requests,” Ujvari said.

But European officials acknowledge that boots on the ground and planes in the air can only do so much.

“Each year it is more difficult to tackle these fires because they are so powerful, so strong,” said Captain Laurent Alfonso, a senior fire officer at the Union for the Mediterranean. “We will not win the fight by just building more and more response capacities. The challenge now is to focus on prevention.”

Gonçalves says policymakers in the region must bolster cooperation, knowledge sharing and mutual aid. “No single country is capable of having all the necessary resources,” he warned.

“Fire knows no borders.”