Europe must put prevention at the heart of its response to wildfires and give local and regional authorities a central role in managing risks, CoR rapporteur Dimitrios Kafantaris stressed following the adoption of his opinion on integrated wildfire risk management by the European Committee of the Regions’ Commission for Natural Resources (NAT). The opinion, adopted during the NAT meeting in Castilla-La Mancha on 2 October, calls for Europe to move away from an approach focused primarily on suppressing fires towards integrated wildfire risk management covering the entire cycle of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. It stresses that prevention must become a permanent, multiannual policy rather than being concentrated in the period immediately before the wildfire season.
Dimitrios Kafantaris (EL/EPP), Municipal Councillor of Pylos-Nestoros and CoR rapporteur, said: “The success of a modern and effective European forest fire policy should not be measured only by numbers, instruments or mechanisms. It must be measured by the disasters we manage to prevent, with the societies we make safer and especially with the lives we protect. We therefore need to move immediately from ‘extinguishing the fire’ to ‘managing the danger all year round’.”
Local and regional authorities are placed at the heart of the proposed approach. The opinion stresses that municipalities and regions possess essential knowledge about local ecosystems, land use, infrastructure, vulnerable populations and socio-economic conditions. They should therefore not simply implement policies designed centrally, but be equal partners in designing, implementing, monitoring and assessing wildfire strategies. It also calls for their meaningful involvement in national preparedness plans and for new responsibilities to be matched with adequate financial and human resources, technical support and operational capacity, particularly for small, mountainous, island and rural municipalities.
The opinion also links wildfire prevention directly to the future of rural areas. It identifies rural depopulation, the abandonment of traditional farming and insufficient active forest management as factors increasing wildfire risk, and calls for fire prevention to be more closely connected with rural development and demographic resilience. Farmers, livestock breeders, forestry producers and other land managers should be part of the solution, supported by economic incentives that help maintain agricultural and forestry activity and encourage generational renewal in high-risk areas.
Recognising that wildfire risks differ considerably across Europe, the opinion rejects a one-size-fits-all approach and calls for policies tailored to different climatic, ecological, geographical, demographic and socio-economic conditions, with particular attention to mountainous, island, border, remote and sparsely populated areas. It also calls for the next EU long-term budget to provide clear and predictable funding for prevention and territorial resilience, including multiannual investment at local and regional level and simpler access to EU funding for municipalities and regions.
The opinion further calls for greater use of data and modern technologies for prevention and early detection, stronger cross-border and interregional cooperation, and better support for local and regional authorities during post-fire recovery. Its central objective is to build a European culture of prevention and resilience in which local and regional authorities have both the resources and a meaningful role in decision-making.
Following its adoption by the NAT commission on 2 October, the opinion “Integrated wildfire risk management” is scheduled for adoption at the European Committee of the Regions’ plenary session on 2–3 December 2026.