Macron Launches New Efforts to Protect France from Wildfires

French President Emmanuel Macron visited Friday the civil security air base of Nîmes-Garons, in the Gard.

The Head of State attended a demonstration of air and ground coordination involving fire trucks, water bomber helicopters, a Dash plane, and a noria of four Canadairs.

During the visit, Macron met with firefighters to discuss forest fire prevention and launched the new météo des forest app and website, which gives daily information about localized wildfire risk.

The device will offer a map of France, giving a degree of risk for each area ranging from green (low-risk), yellow (moderate risk), orange (high-risk) to red (very high risk), but it does not provide information about ongoing forest fires.

The météo des forets will be updated in the afternoon or early evening each day. Two maps will be made available - the first will show risk levels for the day following, and the second will show risk levels for the days after.

The Elysée said that the tool will enable every French citizen to know the level of risk in the department where he or she lives" and "remind people to take the right precautions.

Macron also assured that the state would finance 66% of the 150 million euros mobilized by France 2030 to reforest the disaster areas.

In terms of resources, the French president confirmed that Civil Security would have four additional Canadairs in the coming years, increasing the fleet from twelve to sixteen aircraft. Two of these new planes will be financed by the European Union. While the production of Canadair manufactured by the Canadian company De Havilland had been stopped, the resurgence of the fires pushed certain countries to order new ones.

Government officials have warned that the summer 2023 will be "extremely difficult, potentially at least as difficult as the summer of 2022".

The summer of 2022 was a terrible year for wildfires across Europe, with France particularly badly hit. In total an area seven times the size of Paris burned and more than 19,000 wildfires were recorded.