The consortium presented the WUITIPS toolkit and its application in pilot cases at two successive events: the first in Girona on November 29, 2024, and the second in Perpignan on January 17, 2025. Both events were attended by local key end-users and stakeholders.
The DG-ECHO-funded WUITIPS project is nearing its conclusion, with the entire toolkit now ready for demonstration and implementation across Europe. WUITIPS has developed an innovative wildfire risk management framework tailored for the tourism sector. This framework aims to support risk managers, fire agencies, tourism infrastructure managers, and fire protection engineers in risk management planning, risk analysis, and mitigation strategy development.
The framework includes a comprehensive toolkit with the following key components:
• Tourist hotspot mapping: A harmonized method for identifying zones highly vulnerable to wildfires in relation to tourist infrastructure at the municipal level. This approach integrates information on wildfire hazards and tourist activities, utilizing cross-referenced GIS data layers.
• TourGuard: Tourist infrastructure vulnerability assessment and resilience development tool: Designed for managers of tourist infrastructure, this service helps evaluate their vulnerability and provides feedback to improve their fire resilience. Vulnerability is analysed through a questionnaire that examines issues related to the property’s surroundings, the property itself, key building characteristics, and the level of preparedness with emergency planning tools. The questionnaire responses are processed to generate a quantitative index and tailored recommendations for improvement. This service has been developed as a web application that can be easily integrated into GIS platforms used by wildfire management and tourism agencies.
• TourSafe: Tourist population vulnerability assessment tool. The TourSafe tool is designed to assess the vulnerability of tourist populations within a specific municipality or tourist area. It is intended for use by municipal emergency managers, civil protection agencies, fire departments, community representatives, and public information officers. The TourSafe tool provides these stakeholders with critical information to evaluate the vulnerability of tourists, thereby enhancing their ability to protect and assist the communities they serve. The tool is presented in the form of a user-friendly questionnaire. Once the questionnaire is completed, scores are assessed and categorized into vulnerability levels. Tailored guidelines for best practices in human protection are then provided, addressing the issues identified through the responses.
• Enhanced Fire Safety Engineering Methodologies: WUITIPS has refined two key fire safety engineering methodologies—evacuation modelling and performance-based design (PBD)—to address scenarios involving wildfires and tourist infrastructure. For evacuation modelling, WUITIPS has developed new tourist archetypes for human behaviour models, focusing on variables that influence decision-making during emergencies, such as attachment to property, experience and risk awareness, and safety culture. In terms of PBD, WUITIPS has created guidelines for conducting detailed analyses of buildings in tourist infrastructures. This includes using advanced CFD modelling tools to assess fire exposure scenarios (e.g., wildfuels, ornamental natural fuels, and man-made fuels) and evaluating the performance of building envelopes in preventing fire entry, particularly in areas like glazing systems and wooden elements.
The tools have been developed and applied in several tourist infrastructures and municipalities of Girona province (Spain) and Pyrynées Orientales region (France) and the results of these tasks have been recently showcased in Girona and Perpignan. Both demonstration events consisted of two morning sessions, during which tourist infrastructure managers, risk analysts, fire agencies, civil protection representatives, and risk management organizations gathered with the WUITIPS consortium. The sessions focused on discussing the application, benefits, implementation challenges, and scalability potential of the WUITIPS toolkit. The feedback gathered during these events will help optimize the toolkit’s deployment and support its potential implementation in other regions.
