This summer will be remembered as one of the hottest and most destructive on record, according to The Washington Post. Fires across Europe have shown that many countries are not ready to fight the elements. According to experts, Europe needs to understand the main thing: it is necessary not to fight disasters, but to try to prevent them, and it is important to do it not alone, but with joint efforts.
Fires continue to rage in Europe. According to The Washington Post, last month they killed 34 people in Algeria, in Greece 19 thousand people were forced to evacuate, and in Tunisia, where the temperature reached + 49°C, the flames engulfed dozens of houses and farmland.
As experts say, this summer has pointed Europe to a “frightening reality”: no country has enough resources to fight fires on its own. Each country’s response has been different, says The Washington Post: while some have relied on their own resources and elaborate evacuation plans, others have called for help and sought the support of neighbours. One thing is clear: wildfires are becoming too severe, too frequent and too long-lasting to be contained without thoughtful prevention measures.
The Washington Post emphasises that as wildfires intensify, countries at risk are being drawn into a “race for resources”. And the race is clearly unequal. For example, this year Algeria acquired its first firefighting aircraft, while Italy has at least 19 of them. In addition, the researchers said, Tunisia and Algeria, for example, simply don’t have enough money to develop firefighting measures: “all of which require maintenance costs that their current economies can hardly sustain.” Greece, on the other hand, although considered the region’s leader in disaster response, “lags far behind in firefighting technology, meteorology and fire science,” experts say.
However, scientists are confident that no amount of technology will help in such large-scale disasters. The key to solving the problem lies elsewhere. Theodore Giannaros, a fire meteorologist and researcher at the Athens National Observatory, believes that it is necessary to change “the whole approach” to fighting fires in the region. In his opinion, instead of trying to fight them, it is necessary to emphasise preventive measures that will solve the problem “before they (fires. – InoTV) turn into monsters”.
But there are pitfalls here, too, The Washington Post says. According to a 2023 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, there is still too little funding for such initiatives: “spending on fire suppression in many countries is six times greater than spending on preventing fire risks.”
Nevertheless, European countries realise the most important thing – they cannot cope with the disaster alone. According to European media, EU member states in need of assistance can always turn to the bloc with a request for support. Within the framework of this programme, the Union has its own fleet of 24 planes and four helicopters.
However, European officials admit that due to global warming, it is becoming more and more difficult to fight fires every year. So in addition to focusing on disaster prevention, “policymakers in the region must strengthen cooperation, knowledge sharing and mutual assistance,” argues Portuguese civil defence programme director Antonio Gonsalves.
«No country can have all the resources it needs, and fire knows no borders,» he recalled.
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