Greece updates fire policy to combat climate change; EU strategies and international examples show growing wildfire risk across Europe.
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Greece has passed a new legislation titled “Active Battle” to modernize its disaster prevention framework, focusing on prevention, firefighter training, and local government involvement, marking a step toward adapting to climate change despite having burned about 500,000 hectares of agricultural land in 2025. This aligns with the EU’s 2030 Forest Strategy, which emphasizes fire prevention and forest resilience through vegetation management. The new plan includes mandatory protection plans from local authorities, implementing prescribed burns to reduce fuel, upgrading firefighter training, and establishing operational centers. While proponents see this as a necessary institutional transformation, critics raise concerns about bureaucratic expansion and the need for effective on-the-ground implementation, citing past failures. Furthermore, the risk of wildfires is expanding beyond the Mediterranean to central and northern Europe due to climate change, with countries like Italy, Austria, and Czechia implementing various prevention strategies.
