GFMC and the European Commission


GFMC has supported the European Commission by projects and advisory services, e.g.

The following URLs of the EC are frequently changing, thus may be obsolete:

European Forest Fire Information System – EFFIS
The European Commission DG Joint Research Centre provides the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which is aimed at providing relevant information for the protection of forests against fire in Europe addressing both pre-fire and post-fire conditions.

Monitoring of Vegetation Fires in Protected Areas of the ACP Countries
A tool for fire monitoring has been designed for people working in conservation and park management. The tool is a web client that provides historical and near-real-time information about fire activity derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) burned area and active fire products. The MODIS products are distributed by NASA FIRMS and the University of Maryland and cover more than a decade, from late 2000 to present. The user can select a protected area in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) region and choose a period of time.

EC-funded Natural & Technological Hazards Research
The FP5 Generic activity “Fight against major Natural & Technological Hazards” (DG RTD/I.2) is aimed to develop methods and technologies (including EO & DSS) for environmental, social & economic impact and risk assessment, risk management and disaster preparedness; hazard forecasting & monitoring; prevention, evaluation & mitigation; risk perception, communication and awareness. A status report (extract) on research in the wildland fire arena is available in the following document:

Landscape Fires, People, Environment and Biodiversity
The following documents include statements of the European Parliament and the European Commission of the early 2000s, concerning fire as a threat to the environment, people and biodiversity. Between 2006 and 2010, the EC funded a 4-year fire research programme “Fire Paradox”, which addressed the use of fire for stabilizing ecosystems against undesired destruction by fire.

COST Action CA18135 – Fire in the Earth System: Science & Society
FIRE LINKS will develop the EU-spanning network of scientists and practitioners involved in forest fire research and land management with backgrounds such as fire dynamics, fire risk management, fire effects on vegetation, fauna, soil and water, and socio-economic, historical, geographical, political perception and land management approaches. It will connect communities from different scientific and geographic backgrounds, allowing the discussion of different experiences and the emergence of new approaches to fire research.

Horizon 2020 Call for Tenders – Forest Fires risk reduction: Towards an integrated fire management approach in the E.U. ID: LC-CLA-15-2020 (opened 12 November 2019)
Forest fires are a major hazard in Mediterranean Europe and increasingly so in Central, Eastern and Northern European countries. There is a limit in our capacity to deter fires, particularly mega-fires when conditions are most severe. This is the result of unbalanced management strategies and policies that can be effective in fire suppression under normal weather conditions but are insufficient to deal with extreme events such as mega-fires. Actions should generate the knowledge, tools, capacity and guidance to underpin an Integrated Fire Management strategy that promotes holistic landscape, land use, and forest management and considers the interaction among all phases of the wildfire management process. The call will close on 13 February 2020:

The Green Deal and Landscape Fires

The Green Deal explicitly calls to “reduce the incidence and extent of forest fires”. It also calls “to boost the EU’s ability to predict and manage environmental disasters” as an immediate priority. Large-scale and more intense wildfires are becoming an increasing concern. New EC initiative (2020):

Structured Approaches for Forest Fire Emergencies in Resilient Societies (SAFERS)

In order to support societies becoming more resilient when acting against forests fires, the Horizon 2020-funded project SAFERS ‘Structured Approaches for Forest Fire Emergencies in Resilient Societies’ is going to create an open and integrated platform featuring a forest fire Decision Support System. The platform will use information from different sources: earth observations from Copernicus and GEOSS, fire sensors in forests, topographic data, weather forecasts and even crowdsourced data from social media and other apps that can be used by citizens and first responders to provide situational in-field information.


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