The European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment, Civil Protection Unit, is launching a call for proposals with the aim of identifying projects to step up cooperation between Member States on combating forest fires, which might be eligible for financial support in the framework of a pilot project in the area of civil protection. This financial support will take the form of grants.

The aim of the call is to improve mobilisation of additional operational resources and emergency support from Member States to assist other Member States to cope with forest fires too numerous and too intense to be handled by their own national logistical capacity and manpower.

Proposals should include activities such as:

• Establishing additional fire fighting resources (type of the fire fighting resources, contracting of additional flying hours that should cover as far as possible the period from 15 June to 15 September 2009).
• Decision-making processes.
• Deployment procedures (activities for sending the additional fire fighting resources with fire fighting aircraft to the site and the return trip).
• Integration of this resources into the national system of the coordinating beneficiary (test flights, if necessary, adaptation of national procedures, training, maintenance, etc.).
• Preparation of intervention scenarios, including an inventory of capacity which can be mobilised in an emergency situation and an operational manual for use of the resource.
• Lessons learned (reports, meetings, debriefings, evaluation of results, etc.).

The Community provisional funding available for the call for proposals is:

• 3,50 Million EUR (Annual budget for 2008)

• 21 November 2008 - 15 years ago (Deadline for the presentation of proposals)

• Call for Proposals Pilot Project Cooperation on Combating Forest Fires - CIVIL PROTECTION (Legal base)

Opened to the following bodies or institutes with legal status established in the covered areas:

• Public authorities (all)
• Enterprises

Bodies or institutes must have their registered legal seat in one of the countries taking part in the Programme which are:

• European Union (EU)

Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security

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