Trapani: Sicily’s western tip spent much of August under smoke, and the aircraft that flew over it belonged to a fleet Europe had positioned before the first fire started. The 2026 wildfire season closes this month as the most heavily resourced on record, which makes the results uncomfortable reading.
The Commission announced the largest ever pre-positioning in June. Fourteen countries contributed 777 firefighters, stationed in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal before peak risk arrived, the highest participation since the scheme began in 2022. Twenty-two firefighting aeroplanes and five helicopters stood ready across the fleet, including the first rescEU helicopter, delivered to Romania in January.
The fleet then worked hard. The Commission mobilised four rescEU aeroplanes from Sweden and Cyprus in early July, sent three more from Italy and Spain to Portugal, and mobilised support again in mid-August as fires spread across several member states at once.
Simultaneity is the structural problem. The Mechanism assumes a country in trouble can borrow capacity from a country that is not. When Iberia, southern France and the Italian islands burn in the same fortnight, the pool shrinks exactly when demand peaks, and pre-positioning turns into a queue.
That is why the composition of the fleet matters more than its headline size. Most aircraft remain national assets offered to the Mechanism rather than EU-owned hardware. rescEU owns comparatively little outright, and the amphibious fleet Mediterranean states depend on is ageing faster than manufacturers replace it. New airframes carry long lead times, and the order books already stretch into the next decade.
Member states also disagree on what the Mechanism should become. Southern capitals push for a permanently EU-owned fleet, arguing that mutual assistance fails in a synchronous crisis. Northern and central governments resist the cost, note that they fund capacity they rarely use, and prefer to expand prevention, land management and early detection instead.
The budget cycle will force a decision. Negotiators are shaping the next multiannual financial framework now, and civil protection is one of the files where a genuine capability increase demands new money rather than reallocation. Advocates of an owned fleet will cite 2026 as proof. Sceptics will cite the same season and argue that record resources did not prevent record burned area, which is an argument for prevention rather than for more planes.
Trapani will learn which reading won when the pre-positioning map for 2027 appears next spring.
