In the last three years, the pattern on the number of fires and burnt areas had evident variations, as shown in the graph above. Despite the sharp decrease in burnt areas from 2017 to 2018, in 2018 Europe experienced one of the deadliest fires ever recorded, with over 100 people killed in Greece. Furthermore, many of the central and northern countries experienced a high number of fires, especially in Sweden, which requested twice assistance through the UCPM. The below map provides an overview of the contributions via the UCPM in 2018. The impact of the fires in 2017 and 2018 triggered the revision of the UCPM legislation and led to the creation of rescEU. The year of 2019 was also unusual with very high number of winter and spring fires, which drove the total number of fires in the EU to almost 2,000 fires, the highest number in the last decade.