Europe's heat, fires and drought
Europe fights its fires with borrowed aircraft: a country asks one centre in Brussels, other countries offer what they can spare, the EU pays up to three quarters of the cost, and the Union's own planes do not arrive until 2028, while the same heat is emptying the rivers the continent ships on.
Europe treats extreme heat as a civil-protection problem. The machinery is the EU civil protection mechanism, which the Commission set up in October 2001 and which now covers 37 countries. A country that cannot cope alone asks the emergency response coordination centre in Brussels, which passes the request to every participant. Each offers what it can spare: aircraft, crews, vehicles, experts. The stricken country picks from the offers. The Commission coordinates delivery and pays part of the bill, and Copernicus satellites supply the maps.
The weakness is built in. Offers are voluntary, and they thin out when several countries burn in the same week. So the EU keeps a standby reserve, rescEU, which in the 2026 season stood at 22 planes and 5 helicopters; most of the aircraft sent to France in July came from it. The Union is also buying a permanent fleet of 12 planes and 5 helicopters. One helicopter reached Romania in January 2026, and the first planes are expected in early 2028.
Money and command follow separate rules. Under the governing decision, the EU pays up to 75 percent of transport for assets not pre-committed to the European Civil Protection Pool. For pre-committed assets, the ceiling is 75 percent of operating cost, transport included. When rescEU assets are deployed it covers 75 percent of operational costs. The rest is national, and so is command. Spain raised a fire to operational level 3 for the first time in July 2026, moving the response from the region to the government.
What is contested is whether this is the right emphasis. Moisés Galán Santano, a wildfire expert at the coordination centre, says suppression is the last answer and prevention the missing one. The World Weather Attribution consortium ties the 2026 fire weather to a run of heatwaves falling on a dry spring and an extremely dry June and July. A Commission policy paper this year promoted wider grazing, restored wetlands and floodplains, better fire data and public awareness. That work is slow, local and invisible, and no aircraft appears over it.
The same heat empties the rivers, and a river is shipping lane, irrigation and industrial intake at once. Below a certain level all three fail together. The Danube is at its lowest in 30 years in several countries. Romania's National Institute of Hydrology measured the flow where the river enters the country at under a third of the usual July value. Shipping stopped on the Bulgarian stretch, and border police took 186 passengers off a cruise ship aground near Vidin. In Hungary, cooling intakes no longer reached the water.
”That is our own doing: as temperatures climb, the atmosphere’s thirst increases quickly, sucking moisture out of rivers, lakes, reservoirs and the soil.”
The numbers
What the comparison shows
Where they agree
Nobody disputes the basics. The summer of 2026 was driven by heat and drought that human-caused climate change made worse, Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average according to the Copernicus climate service, and no single country can staff a season like this alone. That aircraft and crews should cross borders is uncontested, as is the judgement that the fire season is growing hotter and longer.
Where they split
The fight is about emphasis. The Commission and national governments point to what is visible: planes in the air, crews on the ground, solidarity within hours. A wildfire expert at the Commission's own coordination centre says suppression is the last answer and that prevention is what is missing, work that is slow and mostly invisible. The Greens put the fault in a third place, in European decisions not taken between summers.
What nobody is saying
Two things. What gets published is what was sent, not what was requested and never offered: the Commission's 27 July release lists the aircraft that flew and says nothing about requests that went unmet when several countries burned in the same week, and that is the number that would settle whether the reserve is big enough. And the three cost shares the decision names, 75 percent each, all attach to response: transport, operating pre-committed assets and deploying rescEU. Prevention is funded under different articles and by different means.
Who says what
That no country should face a disaster of this size alone is the whole reason Europe built a common response capacity.
”Right now, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes, while firefighters battle walls of flame in dramatic conditions to save lives and communities. No country should ever have to face a disaster of this scale alone.”Right now, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes, while firefighters battle walls of flame in dramatic conditions to save lives and communities. No country should ever have to face a disaster of this scale alone.
Called the first nationally led fire response a reasonable success and is asking for a broad national pact on the climate emergency covering response, prevention and reconstruction alike.
”Tenemos que estar unidos en la respuesta, pero tenemos que estar unidos también en la prevención y en la reconstrucción”We have to be united in the response, but we have to be united also in prevention and in reconstruction
Response is the last resort, not the solution. More has to be done to prevent fires, and it is a task for many years.
”The [emergency] response is not only the answer. It’s the last answer. But it’s not all the answer. We need to focus on prevention.”The [emergency] response is not only the answer. It’s the last answer. But it’s not all the answer. We need to focus on prevention.
The problem is not solidarity during the fire but the absence of European decisions between fires; the Commission's heating and cooling plan was expected in April and has not been published.
”There is a widening gap between the scale of Europe’s heatwaves – literally hitting every EU country – and the absence of decisive European action.”There is a widening gap between the scale of Europe’s heatwaves – literally hitting every EU country – and the absence of decisive European action.
The drought is driven less by missing rain than by warmer air pulling moisture out; the 2026 drought arrived two months earlier than the one in 2022.
”That is our own doing: as temperatures climb, the atmosphere’s thirst increases quickly, sucking moisture out of rivers, lakes, reservoirs and the soil.”That is our own doing: as temperatures climb, the atmosphere’s thirst increases quickly, sucking moisture out of rivers, lakes, reservoirs and the soil.
Says he has never heard of levels this low and that nothing similar has happened since 1990. Shipping on the Danube in Bulgaria has stopped, and a cruise ship ran aground near Vidin.
”I have never heard of such low levels over the years. There has certainly not been a similar situation since 1990”I have never heard of such low levels over the years. There has certainly not been a similar situation since 1990
Our coverage
- Drought forces Poland to cut coal output as the Vistula runs lowFriday, 7 August 2026
- Romania on energy alert: Dacia and Ford halt production as drought cripples power supplyWednesday, 5 August 2026
- Hungary's only nuclear plant close to shutdown as the Danube falls to record lowsMonday, 3 August 2026
- Hungary shuts down its only nuclear plant as the Danube hits record lowsSunday, 2 August 2026
- Record low Danube forces Hungary's only nuclear plant to shut downThursday, 30 July 2026
- Three Greek firefighters die as extreme heat hampers the fight against southern Europe's wildfiresWednesday, 29 July 2026
- EU sends planes and firefighters to France and Spain in one of Europe's largest evacuationsTuesday, 28 July 2026