International cooperation in aerial firefighting

Endorsed by
Motivation

Lack of common procedures supporting international cooperation in aerial firefighting.

Potential Solutions
Following solutions could be addressing this gap.

Means are limited to fight large forest fires and new areas are getting more and more affected because of climate change (i.e. example of Sweden). Such areas are less experienced in responding to such (less mature procedures, available material for suppression operations). Support from other countries is therefore key either through bilateral support or through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, coordination by ERCC. Currently, the EU budget only finances a share of transport costs, but not the operational costs. In the future co-financing is planned to go up to 75% of operational costs.

To address the remaining capacity notably because forest fires usually ignite and develop around the same period across large zones (i.e. Mediterranean environment), the European Commission (RescEU) plans to acquire its own fire-fighting aircraft  with the operational control retained by the European Commission, that will be activated when European Civil Protection Pool is insufficient or overwhelmed.

Rationale & related CM function(s)

Common procedures are needed to request international support, allocate limited aerial firefighting assets, establish transportation routes, storage facilities, and a mechanism for international financial support.
The use of foreign and international, public and private, aerial firefighting assets is facilitated by established procedures for management and provision of support.
eu Portfolio of Solutions web site has been initially developed in the scope of DRIVER+ project. Today, the service is managed by AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH., for the benefit of the European Management. PoS is endorsed and supported by the Disaster Competence Network Austria (DCNA) as well as by the STAMINA and TeamAware H2020 projects.