Give us resources, not praise, say European firefighters after hellish summer

Por Zia Weise — Sustainability – POLITICO

BRUSSELS — Europe’s firefighters don’t want your applause. 

Governments have lavished emergency workers with praise for their tireless efforts to extinguish the hundreds of wildfires that consumed an area more than twice the size of Luxembourg this summer. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to “pay tribute” to these “true heroes” in her State of the Union speech on Wednesday morning.

Firefighters, though, would rather countries increase funding, improve working conditions and provide the material and staff needed to fight worsening blazes as climate change turns Europe into a tinderbox.

“We are being fed with applause, like during COVID,” said Sébastien Delavoux, a firefighter and trade unionist at France’s General Confederation of Labour. “Clearly, that’s not enough.”

In France, firefighters launched a six-week strike last week to demand better resources and staffing, citing exhaustion after a difficult summer. But they’re not alone in demanding governments step up support: Firefighters in Belgium, Spain and Greece have gone on strike or demonstrated in recent months over working conditions, staff shortages and inadequate equipment.

Many are also asking Brussels to intervene to ensure firefighters have enough resources, improve pan-European cooperation and invest in wildfire prevention. 

“We have limited staff and resources, and so that’s why I asked to see what could be done at European level,” said Marc Gilbert, the head of Belgium’s Royal Federation of Firefighters, who has sought a meeting with von der Leyen’s office. “It is a cry for help, given what we now know about global warming.” 

Staffing is a particular concern for many fire brigades. 

The European Public Service Union warned last month that between 2024 and 2025, the number of professional firefighters in EU countries fell by 18,000, blaming the decline on budget cuts and the bloc’s economic policies. However, the drop followed a sharp increase the previous year: Official EU statistics show there were still 10,000 more firefighters in 2025 than in 2023.

“The lesson from this summer is that preparedness cannot be built on austerity,” said Jan Willem Goudriaan, EPSU’s general secretary. “You cannot expect an overstretched workforce to keep doing more with less as the risks around them increase.” 

The EPSU is organizing a European firefighters’ demonstration in Brussels on Nov. 3, it said on Monday.

Shrinking brigades

The number of professional firefighters in Belgium declined by 200 between 2024 and 2025, by 2,400 in the Netherlands, more than 4,000 in France, 900 in Spain and a whopping 9,000 in Poland, according to EPSU. 

“We have 17,500 firefighters in Belgium,” said Gilbert, but noted that the majority are volunteers who may not be available whenever needed. “We need staff all the time, 24 hours a day and who are in barracks in sufficient numbers to intervene.” 

Adequate staff available round-the-clock is crucial as speed is of the essence in fighting a wildfire, he added. “In the first minute of a fire, you can extinguish it with a glass of water,” he said. “A quarter of an hour later, we are no longer able to cope.” 

That’s what happened in the High Fens last month, where a blaze spread quickly across a nature reserve and became Belgium’s worst fire on record, Gilbert said. “If we had had the means to intervene very quickly, we would not have reached this point.”

In Germany, the number of firefighters declined by 8,000, according to EPSU, but union representatives say that the country’s vast number of volunteers — around one million — keeps the personnel count sufficient. 

“We rely on volunteer work, and that’s a good thing. And under no circumstances should that ever change in the slightest,” said Siegfried Maier, chair of the German Firefighters’ Union, though he also worries about the volunteers’ availability and flexibility to deploy. 

The far greater concern for Maier is adequate equipment for battling wildfires. 

“Over the past 20 to 30 years, fire departments in Germany have been equipped with the very best of the best. But this very best of the best, which works wonderfully in inner-city areas, now faces a huge problem when it comes to off-road terrain,” he said. 

Many German brigades work with trucks, hoses and protective gear that can’t cope with rural terrain or hours-long jobs, Maier added, warning that heavy suits made for battling ferocious indoor fires put personnel at risk of “collapsing” during wildfire deployments.

In the absence of lightweight extinguishing equipment that can be dragged through forests and fields, firefighters often make do with backpack pumps, “basically garden hosepipes,” he said. 

Delavoux, the French trade unionist, complained of a shortage of firefighting trucks. 

“At the beginning of the 2000s, we had more than 5,000 trucks. Today, we have less than 3,900,” he said, even though experts say Europe’s fire season is getting longer.

France also doesn’t have enough water-bombing aircraft and its existing fleet is so old that planes often have to be grounded for maintenance, he added. 

But while the lack of planes got much attention this summer, “fires are in fact extinguished with the men on the ground,” said Delavoux. “We need people, and trucks.” 

Prevent and prepare

In southern European countries, some firefighters are only employed for part of the year — a precarious situation that has sparked demonstrations in Spain and Greece this year. 

The protesters argue for year-round employment not only to have a steady income but also to spend the winters working on managing forests and rural areas to curb the next season’s fires. 

“At a time when all the relevant authorities are talking about climate change… it’s unthinkable that during four months we receive €600 in unemployment benefits rather than being on the job and working on prevention,” Georgios Tzelepis, the head of Greece’s seasonal firefighters’ union, told local media. 

In general, firefighters say, European governments must step up prevention work to make the increasing fire risk more manageable. 

“We would, of course, like to see more investment in prevention and preparedness, given the rising temperatures and increasing number of wildfires,” said Maier.

That includes not only better forest management and awareness-raising among the population, but also major infrastructure works to build safe routes into forested areas as well as sufficient water storage, he added. 

“Those are certainly unpopular topics because, quite simply, they cost money,” Maier acknowledged. “But we must make this demand of local authorities, the states and the federal government. Wildfires are becoming increasingly common, so we need to be prepared.” 

Maier thinks Brussels can play a role in better coordinating cross-border deployments, for example by ensuring countries have comparable equipment, while Delavoux and Gilbert believe the European Commission can help with improving working conditions. 

“The firefighters are screaming for help at the level of the European Union and at the level of the various member countries,” said Gilbert.

The responsibility for firefighting services lies with national governments, not Brussels, though the Commission coordinates emergency cross-border deployments and a strategic reserve of firefighting aircraft through the bloc’s Civil Protection Mechanism. 

“The Commission has the utmost respect for the courage and professionalism of emergency service workers, whether on the front line of this summer’s wildfires across Europe or other emergencies” and “takes the risks affecting firefighters’ safety and health very seriously,” said Commission spokesperson Eva Hrnčířová in a written statement.

While noting that “the organisation, staffing and operational management of national fire and rescue services remain the responsibility of Member States,” the Commission has sought to strengthen the Civil Protection Mechanism and rolled out wildfire management policies at EU level, she added.

The French interior ministry said in a statement that it is in “dialogue” with trade unions and that upcoming legislation “may include funding measures” for fire services and a possible “adjustment of resources.” The Belgian interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment. In Germany, the 16 federal states and local authorities manage their own emergency services.

Delavoux acknowledged that the main responsibility lies with national governments. Still, he insisted, “we need to remind Europe that it has a responsibility, that it can’t just wash its hands of the matter and say it’s up to individual countries. Countries are facing distinct phenomena, but they are all part of the same trend,” with global warming driving up fire risk.

EU governments and Brussels need to “put the means in place so that emergency services are, in fact, able to face the fires of today,” he said, “and not the fires of yesterday.” 

Fonte: Sustainability – POLITICO