European firefighters in Greece to prepare for climate change back home

Early in the morning at the Nea Makri fire station on the outskirts of Athens, dozens of firefighters gather in front of their fire trucks for the morning roll call. Look closely and you’ll see that most of their uniforms are emblazoned with the word “Pompierii.” This is the latest group of Romanian firefighters to visit the country as part of the EU Prepositioning Program.

Greece is accustomed to welcoming foreign firefighters to assist with large forest fires during the summer season, but this group is not here for the usual emergency assistance.

The program was launched in 2022 and is managed by the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM). As part of it, 555 firefighters from 12 European countries were deployed from June 15 to September 15 in the countries most affected by the wildfires in Southern Europe (France, Portugal, Spain and Greece). Greece hosted almost half of them, with 248 firefighters from Romania, Bulgaria, Malta and Moldova at three different bases in Patra, Thessaloniki and Nea Makri. They arrived in teams of about 40 from each country, rotating every 15 days. “The European Union honored us by granting us the organization of the prepositioning for 2022. We were the first country to start the program,” Fire Lieutenant Colonel Vasileios Bikas, the head of the Preposition Program in Greece, told Kathimerini English Edition.

The main philosophy of the program is that foreign firefighting forces should be ready to deploy as soon as a fire breaks out.

“Suppose, God forbid, that there is a major fire in the greater Nea Makri area that gets out of control and [we] are forced to call in European forces. How many hours would it take for European forces to arrive in Nea Makri? Forty-eight, 50 hours. Now, that time and distance have been reduced to zero. If an incident occurs now and our leadership decides that they need to be deployed, they can be on the ground in 15 minutes,” he said.

Bikas makes clear that while the presence of prepositioned foreign firefighters is valuable, their numbers are not enough to make a dramatic difference on a larger scale. “They are not coming to save us. It is a program that promotes European solidarity. They are here to prove that when the neighbor’s house is on fire, you cannot remain indifferent.”

But there is also an educational dimension to the program. One of the main reasons many countries participate is their concern that climate change will eventually force them to face large wildfires at home, even if they have not yet experienced them. By sending their firefighters to Greece, they are training them in real wildfires, using equipment and techniques that are unusual in their own countries.

In 2023, Greece recorded the highest number of burnt areas among EU countries, with 161,000 hectares charred by the end of August. “I would dare to say that these colleagues are coming here to learn from the Greeks, who are experienced, because they face wildfires of this type every year,” he said.

“They expect – or rather fear – that they could be the next target of forest fires due to climate change. So they say, ‘Let’s look now at what the situation might be like in five or 10 years, so we can be prepared.’ In one of his reports, the Norwegian team leader had written, ‘We are in Greece to see what the situation in Norway might be like in 15 or 20 years.’ That says it all,” he added.

When not fighting wildfires, the Romanian team participates in patrols and a combination of theoretical and practical training. They are always accompanied by a Greek firefighter, a liaison officer, who guides them and relays instructions from the command center.

Kathimerini followed a Romanian team during one of their exercises in Agios Thomas, near Spata. It involved the rapid deployment of their water hoses over a few hundred meters in a field. The head of the Romanian mission in Greece, Lieutenant Colonel Cosmin Riciu, and the Greek liaison officer, Fire Captain George Kelesidis, supervised the exercise.

“In the next few years, we may have the same wildfires that are here in Greece. And we have to be prepared, to have an eye here to learn, to see what kind of equipment you have, to learn from [your] tactics, [to be able] to manage future interventions back in Romania,” Riciu said after the exercise.

‘Hose lines were melting’

Another group of Romanian firefighters was stationed at the Church of Agia Kyriaki, a few miles away. Among them was Platoon Adjutant Marian Lupusoara, currently on his second trip to Greece as part of the Prepositioning Program. Last year, he participated in fighting the forest fire on Rhodes.

The main difference between wildfires in Romania and Greece is the speed of the fire, he explained. “We were amazed at the speed at which the fires spread. It doesn’t manifest itself with the same speed [in Romania], with the same amplitude, maybe, but not with the same speed. “The elements that make the fires in Greece so widespread are the temperature, the very hot climate, the terrain, which is mostly rock, which gets very hot. The hose lines were practically melting; we had to change lines every 3-4 minutes.”

Lupusoara said that in Romania, there is usually a river or lake nearby to help firefighters get water, while in Greece, water sources are scarce, making operations even more challenging.

The lessons Romanian firefighters learned during their previous trips to Greece are already evident in the equipment they brought with them this year. Parked at the Nea Makri fire station is a 30-ton water tanker, which essentially serves as a water reserve for smaller fire trucks. In addition, the EU has funded special firefighting uniforms for the prepositioned firefighters, as well as special adapters to make the fire hoses of different countries fit together.

“This year we have equipment similar to yours. We didn’t have it before because our equipment is usually designed for a structure fire, houses or buildings. In the field, you need to be more able to walk and carry things,” explained the Romanian liaison officer, Fire Captain Marius Costel Plugaru.

Romania has been affected by drought over the past year, which could lead to an increase in wildfires in the future, he added.

“We have to be prepared because of climate change. We are starting to be quite like [Greece] in some areas. Who knows, maybe in a few years we will have a wildfire similar to your country. We hope not, but it is better to be prepared.”