Tens of thousands of hectares of land in France, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece have been reduced to ashes by fires raging across Europe.

According to Eurostat, about 365,000 people worked as professional firefighters in the EU in 2021, representing 0.2% of total employment in the EU.

Estonia, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia (about 0.4% of total employment) recorded the highest proportion of firefighters in their respective states.

In terms of age, most firefighters are relatively young, with the largest number of firefighters in the 35-39 and 40-44 age groups, around 61,000 each. There were also over 50,000 firefighters over the age of 55.

How much have EU governments spent on fire protection?

In 2020, the total public spending of the 27 EU Member States on “fire protection services” amounted to 32.9 billion euros, an increase of 6.4% compared to 2019.

However, the share in total government spending was only 0.5%. Overall in the EU, public spending on fire protection services has remained stable at around 0.4-0.5% of total spending since the start of the time series in 2001.

The share of public expenditure on fire protection in total expenditure varies from Member State to Member State.

In 2020, Denmark reported the lowest share of spending on fire protection services in total spending at just 0.1%, followed by Iceland at 0.2% and Belgium, Malta, Austria, Portugal and Slovenia at 0.3% of total government spending.

By contrast, Romania has the highest share of spending on fire protection services at 0.8%, followed by Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania and Luxembourg at 0.6%.