GFMC Meetings Calendar 2021
Aerial Fire Fighting Europe 2021
12-13 October 2021, Tallinn, Estonia
Hosted in Northern Europe for the first time, Aerial Firefighting Europe Conference and Exhibition took place on 12 and 13 October 2021 in Tallinn, Estonia. Organized by the Tangent Link Team and chaired by the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC), the conference provided the opportunity of the first in-person exchange after travel and meeting restrictions imposed by national and international precautionary measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. About two hundred attendees represented thirty countries of Europe, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia.
The conference took place at a time, when the increasingly noticeable impacts of climate change and land-use change are challenging Europe and the world. Over the last years, Europe’s natural and cultural landscapes – including the society living therein – have become increasingly vulnerable to wildfires. During the Northern hemispheric summer of 2021, extreme droughts and heat waves favored the spread of severe wildfires in and around the Mediterranean Basin, notably in Greece, Turkey, Italy and the Western Balkans.
Conference documentation
- Press release – Aerial Firefighting Europe: New Location – New Opportunities (PDF)
- AFFE-21 final agenda (PDF)
- Chairman’s report (PDF)
- Conferenza Antincendio Aereo UE: La consapevolezza dopo il disastro estivo (Aerial Firefighting Conference Europe: Awareness after the summer disaster) (JP4 Aeronautica, January 2022)
Visual impressions of AFFE21
Photos: Courtesy Riccardo Filippi. For details of the speakers, presentations and exhibitors – see conference agenda:
John Longhurst: Welcome remarks by Tangent Link
Johann Georg Goldammer: Introductory remarks by the conference chair
Marco Panigalli: Directorate General for European Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO)
Johann Georg Goldammer: Report from Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Petronella Norell, Head of National Operations and Civil Protection, Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB)
Exhibition
Exhibition
Joseph Baptiste, Airbus, France
Christian Bergeron, Viking Air Limited, Canada
Hugo Arceo, Air Tractor Europe
Johann Georg Goldammer, moderating
Birgit Zuchold, Mayor of Welzow/Wjelcej, Germany
Johann Georg Goldammer, moderating
Hans Kristian Madsen, Directorate for Civil Protection (DSB), Norway
Tiago Oliveira, Chairman of the Board of Director, Agency for Rural Integrated Wildfire Management (AGIF), Portugal
Jose Manuel Garcia, Captain CL-215T & CL-415, Spanish Air Force
Davide Pontani, Forest Fire Fighting Air Fleet, National Fire Corps, Italy
Panel Session – chaired by John Longhurst, CEO, Tangent Link
“Global Cooperation in Wildfire Management: Practitioner’s View from the Air & the Ground”.
Panelists:
Tiago Oliveira, Agency for Rural Integrated Wildfire Management, Portugal
Riccardo Filippi, CL-415 Pilot & Aviation Journalist, Italy
Hans Kristian Madsen, Directorate for Civil Protection, Norway
Sergiy Zibtsev, Regional Eastern European Fire Monitoring Center, Ukraine
Johann Georg Goldammer, Global Fire Monitoring Center, Germany
Venue of the conference dinner: Seaplane Harbour
Reports of previous AFF conferences:
Please see the web pages of the previous International Aerial Firefighting Conferences, including the conference reports:
- Greece (21-22 October 2008)
- Anaheim, California (19-20 February 2009)
- Rome, Italy (5-6 November 2009)
- Vancouver, Canada (16-17 March 2010)
- Malaga, Spain (2-3 December 2010)
- Washington, D.C., U.S.A. (25-26 May 2011)
- Melbourne, Australia (25 August 2011)
- Sacramento, USA (25-26 January 2012)
- Aix-en-Provence, France (10-11 April 2013)
- Sacramento, USA (19-20 March 2014)
- Zadar, Croatia (29-30 April 2015)
- Sacramento, USA (22-23 March 2016)
- Nimes, France (17-18 October 2017)
- Nimes, France (19-20 March 2019)
- Sacramento, USA (4-5 March 2020)
With the support of
