Press Release: EU helps Spain to tackle forest fires

On the morning of 9 August 2006 Spain requested European civil protection assistance to help combat the forest fires raging in more than 100 places in the region of Galicia. The request triggered a rapid response from the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) of the European Commission. The MIC immediately alerted the civil protection authorities of the 30 countries participating in the Community Civil Protection Mechanism. Within a few hours, Spain received additional fire-fighting airplanes, fire fighters and vehicles from several European Member States. Italy, Portugal and France were the first to provide civil protection assistance through the Community Mechanism.