Responses were awaited from other EU member states.
The request was sent via the European civil protection mechanism - a fund to which that EU member states contribute to ensure that they can seek help in case of need, for example fires, floods and earthquakes.
More than 1,700 fire fighters were at 12.30pm on Wednesday battling 13 major forest fires in mainland Portugal, while in Funchal, on the island of Madeira, local teams and reinforcements sent from Lisbon continued to try to put out various blazes.
The fires have already claimed three lives in Funchal, and hundreds of people have been evacuated and dozens of homes destroyed.
Portugal requested aid to the EUCivPro mechanism, 5 days ago.
Some EU countries firefighter effectives.
2010 data.
| Country | Professional | Voluntary | Other |
| Belgium | 5250 | 16690 |
| Croatia | 2400 | 60000 | 1745 |
| Czech Republic | 10797 | 350000 | 2828 |
| Denmark | 1217 | 2952 | 4469 |
| Estonia | 1600 | 100 |
| Finland | 2940 | 19400 | 690 |
| France | 42000 | 200000 | 2000 |
| Italy | 26000 | 7000 | |
| Netherlands | 4000 | 21000 | 1500 |
| Slovakia | 4296 | 10000 | 1546 |
| Spain | 19886 | 3437 | 3745 |
Result.
UK (non EU as of 2016) sends free firefighter equipment worthing 100 000 euros, very nice of them.
EU help=Italy sends a Canadair aircraft, thanks, Italy.
Maybe most firefighter departements were privatized meanwhile, and there is little profit for them, unless a upper strata bastard house is getting burned.
Neo liberal EU=So Glorious!
By Luis Serra Cortez Matagal from Madeira on 15 Aug 2016, 21:44