More than 300 Firefighters from Six Countries, Including Bulgaria, to Support Greece in Battling Wildfires This Summer

A total of 323 firefighters from Bulgaria, Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Moldova, and Romania will be deployed to Greece starting July 1 to support their Greek counterparts in managing the rising risk of wildfires during the summer months.

The firefighters will be stationed in Athens, Thessaloniki, and Patras from July 1 to September 15, providing operational assistance and participating in on-site training exercises designed to help them gain valuable experience to be applied in their home countries.

The initiative is part of a European programme aimed at strengthening the wildfire response capacity of Southern European countries. In total, 641 firefighters from 14 EU member states will be deployed across Greece, Spain, Portugal, and France under the programme.

Greece continues to experience increasingly hot and dry summers, with rapidly shifting winds fueling increasingly destructive wildfires that are difficult to control. In response to the growing wildfire threat, Minister for Civil Protection Ioannis Kefalogiannis recently announced that Greece will rely on a record number of firefighters this summer and will nearly double its drone fleet for wildfire monitoring and management.

Source: BTA