Fire on Greek island of Rhodes

A fire that is now 2,500 acres has been burning on the Greek island of Rhodes for 3 days and has forced the evacuation of 2 mountain villages. The General Secretary submitted requests for additional air tankers from Italy and France, and each country will send two CL-415 air tankers to the Greek island to lend a hand.

Since April, 2007 there has been talk, and recommendations have been made by the the European Union's Directorate for Civil Protection, to establish a system by which the EU would create a "Rapid Reaction Force" and would coordinate or control some firefighting resources to make it easier to share them across boundaries in any of the 27 member states within the EU. Not everyone is for this, saying the distances are too great and it would be difficult to maintain fire preparedness in all areas if resources were very mobile across boundaries.