Early Warning System for Wildland Fire
Towards the Development of a
Global Early Warning System for Wildland Fire
Fire is a very prevalent disturbance on the global landscape with several hundred million hectares of vegetation burning every year. Wildland fires have many serious negative impacts on human safety, health, regional economies and global climate change. Developed countries spend billions every year in an attempt to limit the impact of wildland fires. In contrast, developing countries spend little, if any,money to control fire, yet they are often the most susceptible to the damaging impacts of fire because of increased vulnerability of human life and property (due to limited fire suppression capability), increased risk due to high fire frequency (often caused by the cultural use of fire), and sensitive economies (tourism,transport).
To mitigate these fire-related problems, forest and land management agencies, as well as land owners and communities, require an early warning system to identify critical time periods of extreme fire danger in advance of their occurrence.Early warning of these conditions with high spatial and temporal resolution incorporating measures of uncertainty and the likelihood of extreme conditions allow fire managers to implement fire prevention, detection and pre-suppression plans before fire problems begin. Considering the fact that the majority of uncontrolled and destructive wildfires are caused by humans as a consequence of inappropriate use of fire in agriculture, pastoralism and forestry, it is crucial that international wildland fire early warning systems are developed to complement relevant national fire danger warning systems where they exist, to provide early warning where national systems do not exist, and to enhance warnings applied or generated at the local (community) level (people-centered early warning systems as requested by the UN Secretary General and as laid down in the Hyogo Framework for Action 20052015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters).This will ensure delivery of targeted information reflecting specific local conditions and allowing the involvement of local communities in wildland fire prevention.
Hosted by Germany under the auspices of the United Nations, the Third International Conference on Early Warning (EWC III) took place in Bonn, Germany, 27 to 29 March 2006.The Wildland Fire Community had been invited to participate at EWC III. Two project proposals for the Global Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (requested by the Hyogo Framework for Action and the UN Secretary General) have been endorsed by the UN and were presented at EWC III. The Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) coordinated the participation of the international wildland fire community.
The contributions on wildland fire included:
- Rationale and Introduction: Needs for Early Warning of Wildland Fire (PDF, 3.5 MB)
- Presentation of the Project Proposal for the Development of a Global Wildland Fire Early Warning System (PDF, 7.6 MB)
- Poster of the Project Proposal: The Links to Multi-Hazard Approaches (JPG, 1.8 MB)
- Comments to the Poster of the Project Proposal: The Links to Multi-Hazard Approaches (PDF, 0.8 MB)
- GOFC-GOLD Poster on the use of Remote Sensing Products for Wildland Fire Early Warning (JPG, 1.9 MB)
- Comments to the GOFC-GOLD Poster on the use of Remote Sensing Products for Wildland Fire Early Warning (PDF, 2.3 MB)
- Presentation of the Project Proposal for the Development of a Regional Central American Wildland Fire Early Warning System (PDF, 4.6 MB)
- Poster on the Satellite Remote Sensing-based Wildland Fire Danger System for Indonesia (PDF, 1.9 MB)
- Comments on the Poster on the Satellite Remote Sensing-based Wildland Fire Danger System for Indonesia (PDF, 4.0 MB)
- Published Text of the Project Proposal for the Development of a Global Wildland Fire Early Warning System (PDF, 0.5 MB)
- Minutes of the EWC-III Wildland Fire Side Event (PDF, 0.5 MB)
Follow-up presentations of the Global Early Warning System for Wildland Fire
- International Workshop on Agrometeorological Risk Management: Challenges and Opportunities 28-29 October 2006, New Delhi (presented by M. Brady; PDF, 3 MB)
- GEOSS AP Symposium, Parallel Session Monitoring Forest Fire, 11 January 2007, Tokyo, Japan (GFMC presentation by Orbita Roswintiarti; PDF, 2 MB)
Related meetings and reports
- Wildland Fire EWS V ICFFR Portugal 2006 (PDF, 1.0 MB)
- Wildland Fire EWS West Africa Workshop Ghana Programme November 2007 (PDF, 0.2 MB)
- Wildland Fire EWS West Africa Workshop Ghana Executive Summary (PDF, 16 KB)
- Wildland Fire GEO Task DI 06 13 May 2008 (PDF, 45 KB)
- Wildland Fire EWS WFAG 2008 (PDF, 3.0 MB)
- Wildland Fire Danger Rating Edmonton Workshop July 2008 (PDF, 0.6 MB)
- Wildland Fire EWS West Africa Edmonton July 2008 (PDF, 2.6 MB)
Website of the Global Early Warning System for Wildland Fire online (December 2009)
Contact:
Johann G. Goldammer
The Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) / Fire Ecology Research Group
Max Planck Institute for Chemistry,
c/o Freiburg University / United Nations University
Georges-Koehler-Allee 75
D – 79110 Freiburg
GERMANY
Tel: +49-761-808011
Fax: +49-761-808012
e-mail: fire@fire.uni-freiburg.de
and
Bill de Groot
Canadian Forest Service
Great Lakes Forestry Centre
1219 Queen St. East
Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Canada P6A 2E5
Tel: +1-705-541-5538
Fax: +1-705-541-5701
e-mail: bill.degroot@canada.ca