Forest fires are a serious threat throughout Europe and cause significant environmental and economic damage. They are becoming more intense and widespread as a result of climate change, particular forestry practices, deteriorating ecosystems and rural depopulation.
The European Commission is dedicating a great effort to support research actions, namely through TREEADS, SILVANUS, FIRE-RES, FirEUrisk and Firelogue projects aiming to contribute to solving major societal challenges around the growing problem of wildfires.
• TREEADS is based on state-of-the-art, high-TRL products united into a holistic Fire Management Ecosystem incorporating several innovative technologies and systems to optimise and reuse the available Socio-technological Resources in Prevention and preparedness, Detection and response, Restoration and adaptation.
• SILVANUS aims to provide a climate resilient forest management platform to prevent and limit the spread of forest fires and relies on environmental, technical and social sciences experts to support regional and national authorities responsible for wildfire management.
• FIRE-RES aims to implement an Integrated Fire Management approach and support the transition toward more resilient landscapes and communities to Extreme Wildfire Events in Europe. Moving on four main pillars (Extreme Wildfires’ behaviour and drivers, landscape and economy, emergency management, communication, and risk awareness) the project has been developing 34 Innovation Actions to allow the integration of fire management measures.
• FirEUrisk has developed a roadmap for integrated and holistic wildfire risk management and has produced a methodology to assess the various components of fire risk. It has proposed a methodology to classify vegetation and map it as a potential fuel for the entire European Territory, analysed several major fires that occurred in Europe in the past years, proposed guidelines for training firefighters and modelled future climate and socio-economic scenarios to assess the needs in fire risk management changes.
• Firelogue aims to synthesise research results and to integrate multiple perspectives on wildfire risk management by focusing on justice aspects. Addressing questions around distributive, procedural and restorative justice allows a better understanding of the implications of different measures, potentially lacking voices that need to be heard as well as efforts that may be needed to balance benefits and burdens.