The European Union has assigned four aircraft to Italy: two medium amphibious planes and two light ones. In total, 28 firefighting planes and four helicopters will be active in summer 2024 at 10 EU Member States. This is what the European "RescEu" program provides, that is the civil protection mechanism that mobilizes fixed and rotary wing assets from various countries to make up for the shortcomings of a member state during a fire emergency.

The European fleet of firefighting aircraft, in addition to Italy, is made up as follows: seven units will be deployed in Greece (one helicopter, two light aircraft and four medium planes), two in Croatia (medium aircraft), two in Spain (medium planes), five in France (one helicopter and four medium aircraft), four in Sweden (light planes); finally two in Portugal (light aircraft), two in the Czech Republic (helicopters), two in Cyprus (light planes) and two in Germany (light aircraft).

"As we celebrate the fifth anniversary of rescEU, it is imperative that we continue to strengthen our collective resilience against natural disasters". "The pre-positioning of firefighters and the expansion of our aerial firefighting fleet are crucial steps in this effort", said Janez Lenarčič, European Commissioner for Crisis Management.

Brussels will strategically position 556 firefighters from 12 countries in the places most at risk of fires such as France, Greece, Portugal and Spain. The number of aircraft in service in summer 2024 is a slight increase compared to that of 2023, in which the RescEU mechanism commanded 24 fixed-wing aircraft and four helicopters. 

On the subject, see also the article published by AVIONEWS.