The two southern European countries can join forces in an emergency thanks to coordinated communication, training and new technical equipment.
He climate change is doing more frequent and intense natural disasters across the EU. In the last five years, the forest fires in Spain and Portugal They devastated almost a million hectares. These countries are now joining forces to combat such catastrophes. In 2022, a highly intense and unpredictable forest fire devastated a cross-border area of Spain.
“It brings back bad memories because we lived through hard times here. The entire town tried to fight this happy fire. A fire is practically a catastrophe. We are seeing that they are becoming much more virulent. We need now, not only the means we have in Salamanca, but also the means from outside,” says Modesto García Gomara, neighbor and local firefighter from El Maíllo.
This is the objective of the project ARIEM+ of the EU. It is managed from an Emergency Center in Galicia. This Spanish region together with Castilla y León and the North of Portugal created an emergency plan to prevent and respond to major disasters such as floods, strong storms, forest fires, etc. The project aims to benefit 600,000 people.
“It consists of coordinating, planning, analyzing the risks, raising awareness among the population, carrying out training and drills for both the population and the operational services and seeing the endowment needs to face risks“explains the general director of the Galician Emergency Service, Marcos Araujo.
emergency units they relive the forest fire that took place in 2022. A fire drill to test joint coordination. Effective communication is crucial: Teams arriving from abroad must quickly integrate into local units following the cooperation protocol.
The “single operational command structure” created within the framework of the project coordinates the risk situation. The region where the catastrophe occurs directs the operation, explains Francisco Bolaños, chief firefighter of the forest fire department of Junta Castilla y León:
“Drills are important because we rehearse our work procedures. We see in which aspects we can improve them. “The operatives who come to do the drill with us, unrelated to our administration, know what our work procedures are and the way in which we are going to integrate them into a real case.”
The ARIEM+ budget amounts to 4 million euros. He EU Political Cohesion Fund financed 75%. 25% was financed by the regions of Galicia, Castilla y León and Northern Portugal. The communications coordinationthe training and the new technology equipment They allow Spain and Portugal to join forces in case of emergency.
