115,000 hectares burned: RTE strengthens its wildfire response resources
On 27 July 2026, RTE set out its partnership with the civil protection agency: 25 missions and 480 water drops between 1 June and 6 July 2026.
Some 115,000 hectares of forest had been destroyed by the 13,000 fires that had affected France since the beginning of 2026, RTE stated in a publication dated 27 July.
The grid operator works in close coordination with the Directorate-General for Civil Protection and Crisis Management. Since the summer of 2020, it has made heavy Super Puma H225 helicopters available to the agency, operated by its subsidiary AIRTELIS and by RTE's helicopter services and works division.
Between 1 June and 6 July 2026, two of these aircraft were deployed on 25 missions across the country, carrying out 480 water drops, amounting to nearly two million litres of water released.
During the Fontainebleau forest fire, the largest ever recorded in that woodland, a Super Puma was mobilised from 13 to 15 July: fifteen flight hours, 135 water drops and 540,000 litres of water over more than 2,000 hectares destroyed. The aircraft was then redeployed to Corsica.
Prevention is a year-round effort: joint exercises with the civil protection services, vegetation management around power lines and the development of early fire detection systems based on artificial intelligence.
These episodes are a reminder that grid robustness is becoming a matter of climate adaptation as much as of electrical engineering.