Portugal has 12,800 firefighters and is the 3rd worst in the EU in investing in fire protection

Portugal recorded, last year, 12,800 professional firefighters, among 390,000 in the European Union (EU), and is the third country that invests the least in fire protection, equivalent to 0.3% of government expenditure.
Data published today by the EU’s statistical service, Eurostat, reveal that, in 2024, Portugal had 12,800 firefighters, equivalent to 0.25% of total employment in the country.
In total, in the community space, the countries of the European Union together had 390,600 professional firefighters last year, representing 0.19% of total employment in the EU.
That year, compared to 2023, the number of firefighters increased by 28,200.
Among the 20 EU countries with available data, Croatia recorded the highest proportion of firefighters in total employment at 0.45%, followed by Greece at 0.41%, ahead of the Czech Republic at 0.34%.
The lowest proportions were recorded in the Netherlands (0.07%), Denmark (0.08%), and Sweden (0.10%).
In the EU, about 75% of all professional firefighters were between 15 and 49 years old, which, according to Eurostat, is “a workforce visibly younger compared to total employment in the EU, where only 64.8% of workers belong to that age group.”
Data also published today by the EU’s statistical office on the investment of European countries in fire protection services in 2023 show that Portugal was the third worst of the 27, allocating to this matter a percentage of 0.3% of government expenditures, the same as Austria.
Only behind Denmark (0.1%) and Malta (0.2%).
In contrast, in 2023, Romania had the highest proportion of expenditure on fire protection services, with 0.9% of total government expenditure, followed by Estonia and Greece, with 0.7% each.
Overall, in 2023, EU governments spent 40.6 billion euros on fire protection services, reflecting an 8.5% increase in public spending on this function compared to 2022 (when 37.4 billion euros were recorded).
“The increase in spending on fire protection services, in absolute terms, is in line with increases in other functions, so fire protection services have consistently represented 0.5% of total government expenditure since 2017,” Eurostat also states.
The data comes as mainland Portugal has been affected by multiple large-scale rural fires since July, especially in the North and Central regions.