GLOBAL WILDLAND FIRE NETWORK (GWFN)
Silva Mediterranea Working Group “Forest Fires”
Institutions, Projects and other Wildland Fire Links
Archive maintained for historic Reasons
The following list of institutions working in wildland fire in the Mediterranean Region are historic. All web links are meanwhile expired. For historic reasons, the list is maintained:
France
Association Régionale de Défense de la Forêt Contre les Incendies (DFCI)
In the Aquitaine, there is one of the biggest forests in Europe, wooded with pinasters, on an interrupted surface area of almost 1 million ha, also called “Forêt des Landes de Gascogne – the Landes de Gascogne Forest”. The website provides basic information on forest fires in that region (in French).
Centre d’Essais et des Recherches de l’Entente (CEREN)
The website provided an overview on the research work on flammability, protection equipment, impacts of forest fires, and rehabilitation after fire (in French).
CEMAGREF Centre des Documentation Foret Méditerranéenne et Incendie (DFCI)
In the section Mediterranean Forest and Fire the DFCI provided the electronic version of its fire bulletin and provided access to a photographic guide and database <in French>.
EFAISTOS
The EFAISTOS project, financed by the European Union, constituted the first part of the European behaviour model for forest fire, taking into account the lower layers of the forest fuels.
FireTorch
FireTorch was a project financed by the European Union in which the currently available knowledge on the use of prescribed burning in the Mediterranean countries is collected and evaluated. The website provided information on the objectives and the progress of the project. From this website a database can be downloaded which contains the experience gained by prescribed burning so far. The information was provided in English and French.
Mediaforest – Landes Fire Department
This website described a scientific and operational approach to forest fire. A detailed documentation on fire experiments was included
Ministry for Agriculture and Fisheries (Ministère de l’Agriculture et de la Pêche)
The Ministry for Agriculture and Fisheries of France is in charge of forest fire protection. The website provided the last annual report.
Prométhée Database
https://www.promethee.com/
The Prométhée database on forest fires was created in 1973 and contains standardized fire statistical information of 15 provinces (départements) of the Southeast of France beginning in the 1970’s <in French>.
Greece
PROMETHEUS Project
PROMETHEUS was a Management Information System dedicated to forest fire protection. The project is realised in the frame of ENVIRONMENT and CLIMATE R&D Program of the European Union and was implemented by a Consortium of seven European research organisations co-ordinated by ALGOSYSTEMS s.A.
Israel
Jewish National Fund (JNF) KKL
https://www.kkl-jnf.org/
The Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (KKL) of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in Israel provides information on forest fires in Israel-
Italy
ESA/ESRIN
The ATSR World Fire Atlas (WFA) – the first multi-year global fire atlas ever developed – provides data approximately six hours after acquisition and represents an important scientific resource because fire is a major agent of environmental change.
Earth Watching
The Earth Watching home page provided new satellite imagery related to disasters like flooding, volcanoes and fires. It gave a good overview of current events. From this web site the FIRE and the IGBP-DIS products can be accessed, along with an extensive list of publications and a bibliography
Global Environment Monitoring Unit
The GEM Unit (former Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit ) was among Europe’s main players in advancing Earth observation technologies and methodologies, using remote sensing for the assessment of terrestrial and marine ecosystem condition and to monitor anthropogenic actions – such as deforestation and determine their impact on the global environment. One of the three thematic groups within GEM as TEM – Terrestrial ecosystem monitoring in EU development-assistance priority regions. TEM provided a long-term picture of the conditions in ecosystems identified according to the priorities of EU aid, development and international environmental policies, including disturbance by fire.
IGBP-DIS Global Fire Product
The IGBP-DIS Global Fire Product Home Page was a response to a requirement from Global Change scientists for better information on the occurrence and impacts of fire on the Earth’s surface. It provided a global picture of vegetation fire derived from daily satellite observations (IGBP-DIS 1km AVHRR Product) over the period from April 1992 to December 1993.
Lebanon
Association for Forest Development and Conservation (AFDC)
One of the main concerns of AFDC was to develop a working mechanism to prevent and fight forest fires on the national level involving the local community as the major stakeholder. Accordingly, and through its different Units, AFDC is creating a team of volunteers from local community members who are competent and well-trained to combat forest fires in the most important conservation areas.
Portugal
Associação para a Promoção da Qualidade de Vida do Meio Rural
This website of the “Association for the Promotion of Quality of Life in the Rural Space” provided comprehensive information on “Prevention, Safety and Combat of Forest Fires” (in Portuguese).
Direcção Regional de Agricultura de Trás-Os-Montes
The Regional Directorate of Agriculture of Trás-Os-Montes provided safety guidelines for conducting prescribed burning (in Portuguese)
Fire Information System of the Centro Nacional de Informação Geográfica
This comprehensive website covered a large fire information system for Portugal. It provides the Forest Fire Risk Cartography (CRIF = Cartografia de Risco de Incendio Florestal) which was created in 1994 under an agreement of the Ministries of Interior Administration, Land Administration and Planning, Agricultural and Environment and Natural Resources. CRIF aims to provide a cartography based in land zones with forest fire risk. In mid-1998 the CRIF Group developed a WWW server in order to show group activity and to put on-line forest fires information. During 1998 a new protocol was signed with Civil Protection National Service, to produce software to manage emergency situations. The website provided information with maps on:
- Water resources
- Fire brigades
- Lookout (fire watch) towers
- Air fields
- Facilitation in identification of locations, including GPS
Instituto de Meteorologia (IM): Meorological Support to Forest Fire Prevention
The collaboration with the operational entities, in real time (normally from June to September), included the following daily general information: Meteorological observations from the national station network; weather charts; national and regional weather forecast bulletins; satellite imagery; wind field forecast for 24 hours with 3 hours intervals. As specific information, the IM computes and delivers: forest fire danger index computed for about 60 meteorological stations; charts with forest fire risk classes by regions; charts with the forecast of forest fire danger indices tendency; weather bulletin for 48 hours forecast, specific for fire prevention.
Ministry of Agriculture, General Directorate for Forest Protection
A special forest fire website was available in the homepage (in Portuguese). This website provided weekly updates of the fire situation during the current fire season (by district, region, comparison with earlier years, large fires).
Núcleo de Investigação Científica de Incêndios Florestais
The website of the “Nucleus for the Scientific Investigation of Forest Fires” at the University of Coimbra provided information on forest fire research projects (in Portuguese).
Spain
European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories (EARSeL), Special Interest Group on Forest Fires (FF-SIG)
The University of Alcalá (Spain) hosted the web site of the EARSEL Special Interest Group on Forest Fires. The intention of the web site is to foster communication among members, by maintaining a web site where project results and papers can be disseminated, and personal links between researchers and student mobility be promoted.
Incendios Forestales – Forest Fires
This comprehensive website on forest fires in Spain was a joint effort by the Colegio de Ingenieros de Montes and the Ministry for Environment. The website offered comprehensive information on all areas concerned with forest fires (fire prevention, suppression, technical equipment used in Spain, practical advice, fire meteorology, risk maps, legislation). Comprehensive fire statistical databases cover the period starting1961. Most detailed statistical data are available starting 1991. The link section provides international links explained in Spanish.
MEGAFIRES Project
The general goal of this project was to establish an integrated framework to analyse satellite remote sensing images for operational management of large wildland fires in Mediterranean countries. The project tried to improve cartographic and statistical information which is critical to the three phases of fire management: pre-fire planning (fire risk), fire suppression (detection and fighting) and post-fire evaluation (fire effects). All these aspects were considered with a global Mediterranean perspective.
Laboratorio de Teledetección
The laboratory has developed a forest fire risk index. Examples of 1999 for Spain and its neighbour countries.
Information to readers of this web page:
Please search the internet for possible new URLs and follow-up projects.