The European Commission announced today that it will step up the firefighting campaign and provide much-needed support to affected communities. Translated into numbers, this means over 490 firefighters and nine aircraft deployed in Greece and Tunisia since 18 July: this is what is foreseen by the European Union's civil protection mechanism.

"The fires that are devastating the Mediterranean region require an immediate and united response. The European Union, through its civil protection mechanism, is fully in solidarity and ready to support the affected countries", underlined the crisis management commissioner, Janez Lenarcic. 

It's an initiative taken to offer a unitary and immediate response to the current emergency. The European mechanism is supported by 10 countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Italy, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Serbia. The system is also coordinated using Copernicus satellite mapping, which provides damage assessment in several areas affected by fires in the Mediterranean.