{"id":61673,"date":"2026-07-27T17:55:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T17:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/61673\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T17:55:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T17:55:27","slug":"brussels-increases-the-number-of-aircraft-sent-to-spain-and-deploys-134-portuguese-firefighters-to-tackle-the-wildfires-ahead-of-emergency-talks-involving-the-balearics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/61673\/","title":{"rendered":"Brussels increases the number of aircraft sent to Spain and deploys 134 Portuguese firefighters to tackle the wildfires ahead of emergency talks involving the Balearics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Commission has increased the number of aircraft mobilised to help fight the forest fires<\/a> in Spain<\/a> to six and has also deployed 134 firefighters and 41 vehicles from Portugal, as part of an expansion of the response activated last week at the request of the Spanish Government through the European Union<\/a> Civil Protection Mechanism.<\/p>\n

Last Friday, Brussels<\/a> had sent four Canadair aircraft \u2013 two based in Greece and another two stationed in Italy \u2013 after Spain requested European assistance in view of the severity of the fires, particularly in the Community of Madrid<\/a> and the province of \u00c1vila, which have already ravaged more than 80,000 hectares across the country.<\/p>\n

These resources have now been joined by two further aircraft from Turkey, bringing the total to six aircraft, as well as three Portuguese ground teams, according to a statement issued on Monday by the European Commission, which also specified that the Copernicus satellite emergency service is supporting operations on the ground and continues to assess how the situation is developing to determine whether additional resources need to be mobilised.<\/p>\n

EU sources have clarified that extinguishing the fires is proving \u201cparticularly complex\u201d due to the fires\u2019 extensive perimeter and the fact that the flames are reaching residential and industrial areas \u2013 a situation that requires resources to be divided between directly tackling the fires, evacuating the population and protecting property and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

They have also warned that, although the meteorological risk has fallen from the extreme levels recorded at the start of the incident, it has not decreased sufficiently to ease the burden on teams that have been working on the ground for several days.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo country should have to face a disaster of this magnitude on its own,\u201d said Hadja Lahbib, the European Commissioner for Preparedness, Crisis Management and Equality, who assured that the EU would maintain its support \u201cuntil the fires are extinguished\u201d.<\/p>\n

In total, this summer the EU has deployed more than 770 firefighters from 14 countries to six states particularly vulnerable to wildfires<\/a> \u2013 Spain, Portugal, France<\/a>, Italy, Greece and Cyprus \u2013 as part of a preventative programme that ensures foreign personnel are on the ground before an emergency arises.<\/p>\n

The Commission considers that the course of this season has been more severe than last year\u2019s, both in terms of the intensity and the extent of the fires, although it warns that it is still too early to determine whether, by the end of the season, the area burnt will exceed that of 2025.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the EU has mobilised seven aircraft and four helicopters from the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden and Turkey, most of which form part of the European \u2018rescEU\u2019 fleet. A Commission liaison officer is also in Bordeaux to help the French authorities coordinate international assistance in tackling these fires, which have already spread across more than 42,000 hectares and remain out of control, according to the same sources.<\/p>\n

France is also receiving bilateral support from Switzerland, outside the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, whilst Brussels is also maintaining an active operation in Tunisia, where an Italian Canadair based in Sicily is carrying out daily round-trip missions to support local teams.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Spain\u2019s Ministry of the Interior will convene the autonomous communities, including the Balearics, this Wednesday to address the national emergency caused by the forest fires The PP-led communities will call for \u201cgreater coordination\u201d and \u201cmore resources\u201d from the Government
This was announced on Monday by the PP\u2019s Deputy Secretary for Institutional Regeneration, Cuca Gamarra, at a press conference where she clarified that this meeting \u201cis not new\u201d and that \u201cit was already planned\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gamarra noted that the autonomous communities governed by the Partido Popular will attend the meeting with the intention of calling on the Government for \u201cgreater coordination\u201d and \u201cmore resources\u201d to tackle the wave of fires, although she emphasised that they will do so \u201cout of institutional loyalty\u201d and with a willingness to \u201cpull their weight\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must overcome this national emergency. It is going to be a difficult summer,\u201d warned Gamarra, who insisted on the need to strengthen cooperation between administrations to tackle the forest fires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Commission has increased the number of aircraft mobilised to help fight the forest fires in Spain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6765,1512,18078,333,7638,3515,556,4496,605,82,17,13036,12315],"class_list":["post-61673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-brussels","tag-climate-change","tag-deaths","tag-european-union","tag-extreme-heat","tag-forest-fires","tag-france","tag-heatwave","tag-latest-headlines","tag-madrid","tag-spain","tag-state-of-emergency","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}