Ukraine has sent 70 firefighters to France to help battle the country’s most devastating wildfire season on record, marking Kyiv’s first deployment as a provider of assistance under the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism.
“For the first time ever, Ukraine is joining the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism as a provider of assistance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X on Saturday. The deployment, first reported by Euractiv, also includes 15 fire engines and trailers, and amounts to about a tenth of the EU’s available firefighting force currently assisting efforts in Spain and France.
The Civil Protection Mechanism brings together 37 European countries, allowing participating states to request assistance when national disaster response capacities are overwhelmed. Since 25 July, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, Portugal, Czechia, Croatia, Turkey, Belgium, Luxembourg and Lithuania have also sent personnel and equipment to support France’s firefighting efforts.
According to the EU’s Copernicus satellite monitoring service, more than 110,000 hectares have burned in wildfires across France so far this year, setting a national record. Despite the efforts of 1,500 firefighters, a blaze in the south-eastern Var region burned a further 1,500 hectares overnight, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Saturday.
In the south-western Gironde region, where more than 40,000 hectares have burned and over 200,000 people have been evacuated as a precaution, the wildfire has been “contained”, Nunez added. The evacuations have been among the largest in France in recent decades, with residents of the Landes and Gironde forests displaced as flames advanced toward towns and holiday camps.
The deployment gives Ukraine a new role in European disaster response. Kyiv, which has received EU aid throughout the war with Russia, is now acting as a donor country within the mechanism, sending its own emergency crews westward. The shift was hailed by EU officials as a sign of deepening integration between Ukraine’s emergency services and those of the bloc.
The French fires are part of a wider pattern across southern Europe, where successive heatwaves have dried out forests and left firefighting fleets stretched. Spain has also requested EU assistance, and the mechanism has coordinated aircraft and ground teams across the continent throughout July.
Wildfire specialists say the scale of the 2026 season in France, with more than 110,000 hectares burned so far, already exceeds the previous national record set in 2022, when blazes destroyed roughly 72,000 hectares, much of it in Gironde. Scientists have linked the extreme conditions to climate change, which has made heatwaves more frequent and intense across the region.
French authorities say the coming days remain critical, with high winds forecast in the Var and continuing hot, dry weather elsewhere. The Ukrainian crews, including experienced rescuers who have worked in combat zones, are expected to remain in France through the peak of the fire season.
Sources: Euractiv, Ursula von der Leyen on X, AP News
Author: Europe Desk
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