rescEU plane – Canadair, wildfire in Albania –Finiq municipality

ended

The rescEU group was composed of one aircraft with two crews (1 pilot in command, 1 co-pilot, and 1 flight engineer per crew) and 4 technicians, 10 persons in total. In the late evening hours of 6 August, the Republic of Albania requested international assistance through the ERCC, within the framework of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism, to extinguish an open-air fire in the Vlora region, in the Finiq municipality. On 7 August, the Republic of Croatia offered assistance, one Canadair CL-415 firefighting aircraft, which the Republic of Albania accepted. The Civil Protection Operations Centre exchanged information and data relevant to the provision of international assistance in extinguishing the fire. The Croatian Canadair CL 415 took off on a firefighting mission in the Republic of Albania on 8 August at 09:20 and landed at the airport near Kuçovë (Albania) at 11:00. On August 9, the Republic of Albania requested additional assistance in the form of 1 Canadair aircraft for ''Rapid Intervention'', 2 firefighting helicopters for 5 days, 2 Air Tractor AT-802 FireBoss aircraft for 5 days, and 1 Canadair aircraft for 5 days. During the post-flight inspection of the aircraft, a malfunction in the water intake system was detected. The aircraft landed at Zemunik Airport on 12 August 2025 at 13:11.