As wildfires grow in scale and intensity across Europe, innovative approaches are urgently needed to strengthen prevention, preparedness and response. Under the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM), six EU-funded projects are piloting new tools and methods – from data portals and early detection systems to tourism-sector toolkits and educational games.
In a collaborative effort to strengthen wildfire management and readiness across Europe, the UCPM is co-financing six innovative projects: EWED, FIREPRIME, FIRE-SCENE, WUITIPS, WEDS and SparkleFire. Brought to life through collaborative partnerships involving a variety of stakeholders and countries, these initiatives strive for practical and inclusive solutions to prevent, prepare for and mitigate extreme wildfires.
Through the use of innovative technologies and tools, such as data portals, simulation models, smartphone applications and educational games, each project proposes unique approaches to wildfire preparedness. At their core, these projects share common goals: enhancing the understanding and management of wildfire risks, promoting readiness, and fostering resilience through extensive research, comprehensive guidelines and active community engagement.
These projects place particular emphasis on educating communities and stakeholders about extreme weather events, ensuring that everyone can play a role in safeguarding Europe's landscapes from the increasing threat of wildfires.
EWED (Extreme Wildfire Events Data Hub) is working to advance research and generate knowledge on wildfires to better prepare European emergency response systems for extreme wildfire behaviour. To reduce risks associated with extreme wildfire events, the EWED consortium is collecting fire and atmospheric data from wildfires and prescribed burns worldwide. This information will feed into an open data portal, the Wildfire Data Portal, designed for wildfire managers and researchers.
As the project draws to a close this year, EWED will launch the Wildfire Data Portal, coupling science with practice. The platform will include models and simulations for emergency managers to better understand and analyse extreme wildfire events in real-time, supporting better decisions to prepare for and respond to wildfires.
It will also propose comprehensive guidelines for emergency managers to strategically plan for extreme wildfire events by using the knowledge generated in operational scenarios. Finally, it will provide training for practitioners on the atmosphere-fire interaction during extreme wildfire events and the management of extreme wildfires.
Representing varied geographical environments, the EWED partnership is also looking to northern Europe where wildfires are no longer a rarity but where experience, current knowledge, and trained personnel for dealing with large wildfires remain limited.
As extreme wildfire events become the new normal, it is our collective responsibility to openly share knowledge and science with the fire community to build a more adapted and resilient Europe. We are proud to play our part in this effort.
The FIREPRIME (European Program for Wildfire-Prepared Communities) partnership focuses on varied fire-prone European regions. It aims to promote fire resilience in communities, down to the household level, at the wildland-urban interface (the area where Urban development meets wildland areas). The consortium works in close collaboration with local stakeholders and follows recent European policy developments, notably the European Disaster Resilience Goals and the Preparedness Union Strategy. Evidence shows greater public awareness of wildlife risks can reduce the number of man-made ignitions, which are the overwhelming cause of wildfires.
FIREPRIME is developing a comprehensive wildfire preparedness toolkit that includes:
The consortium is testing these products in three different European regions: Barcelona (Spain), Tyrol (Austria), and Gothenburg (Sweden). To ensure wide uptake, the consortium also considers feasibility, limitations and the diversity of communities. The FIREPRIME partnership is composed of academia from Spain, Austria and Sweden as well as an international wildfire management non-profit entity.
FIREPRIME turns knowledge into action, empowering citizens, protecting infrastructure and engaging communities. Our aim is to lay the groundwork for safer, more resilient communities across Europe in the face of wildfires.
WUITIPS (Wildland-Urban-Interface Fire Touristic Infrastructures Protection Solutions) Building on earlier projects (WUIWATCH and WUIVIEW) also co-financed by the UCPM, the WUITIPSconsortium developed a toolkit tailored for the tourism sector. The WUITIPS project delved into fire impacts on buildings, cultural heritage and human behaviour in touristic areas. In so doing, WUITIPS developed a method for tourist hotspot mapping, which assesses the vulnerability of tourist infrastructure and populations. The project also developed fire safety engineering methodologies, including evacuation procedures.
These tools and guidelines for fire prevention and protection planning were tested through discussions with stakeholders in cross-border pilot sites, covering the Girona province in Spain and the Pyrénées-Orientales in France. Tourist infrastructure managers, risk analysts, fire agencies, civil protection representatives, and risk management organisations provided insights into the possible application benefits and implementation challenges of the WUITIPS toolkit, and its potential scalability to other regions. The consortium included research organisations, a fire testing laboratory, and regional municipal and civil protection organisations.
What makes WUITIPS innovative is the integration of risk mapping, vulnerability assessment, evacuation modelling, and fire safety engineering into one harmonised framework. This gives authorities and stakeholders a common language and actionable tools to strengthen wildfire resilience in tourism areas.
FIRE-SCENE (Advancing Wildfire Civil Protection Scenarios into Risk Planning and Governance) is another initiative focusing on improving wildfire governance, preparedness and management around challenges in urban areas, tourist sites, and protected and recreational areas. It aims to provide civil protection actors with operational guidelines for wildfire risk management. The partnership combines research, regional and civil protection actors to develop and conduct training that addresses new risk scenarios due to climate change. By engaging closely with local stakeholders at pilot sites in Greece, Spain and Italy, the FIRE-SCENE partners aim to improve wildfire risk awareness among the public, and foster learning and exchange in the face of new wildfire risk situations.
The project will propose methods and tools for integrated wildfire risk governance, assessment and planning. In addition, it will define operational guidelines for municipalities and communities, both at pilot sites and regional levels, to reinforce resilience in urban, touristic and recreational areas, including evacuation planning. Finally, it will run four parallel pilots where different operational tools for wildfire risk management will be developed and tested with regional and local authorities.
The main goal of FIRE-SCENE is to build a shared vision of the diverse challenges the Mediterranean Europe must face to cope with extreme wildfire events risk scenarios, based on complementary fields of expertise and territorial perspectives, from science to practitioners’ views, and together with the participation of the local stakeholders.
WEDS (Wildfire Early Detection System) launched in January this year with the aim to explore and better understand wildfire risk factors and vulnerabilities in Czechia – a country that has been less affected by wildfires. WEDS will analyse early detection technologies, in consultation with the forest management and environmental protection sectors.
The WEDS team will conduct a pilot study with early detection technologies in one forest district to test the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing a national wildfire early detection system in Czechia. The pilot will assess response times, data, accuracy and the ability to generate actionable information for wildfire management authorities.
The Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic will organise a workshop with regional fire rescue brigades, relevant state institutions and forest owners to discuss a draft ‘Action plan for implementing a national wildfire early detection system in Czechia’. Upon project completion in summer 2026, the Directorate General of the Fire Rescue Service will propose an assessment of technical, operational, financial and environmental feasibility for adopting early detection technologies in forest districts or at the national level.
As climate change intensifies wildfire risks across Europe, the WEDS project comes at exactly the right time to strengthen our ability to detect and respond before fires spread.
SparkleFire takes an innovative approach to fire management and wildfire education, developing educational games focused on the four European bioregions (Atlantic, Mediterranean, Central and Northern). The project uses games and play for disaster risk reduction in this less explored domain. In designing these educational games (an online game, a board game and building blocks for serious play), SparkleFire emphasises improving awareness of risks in communities that may be affected by wildfires. The project will propose games for schools to cultivate and stimulate understanding of wildfires and their risks from a young age. It is also creating games for professionals to help in identifying the most effective mitigation measures and engage wider audiences.
The consortium has already carried out initial expert interviews and a participatory workshop (in the Montserrat Natural Park in Spain) to identify differences and common aspects between the four geographical regions regarding awareness and communication needs. The findings inform the design of the games. Next, the project will organise testing sessions in each of the four regions to assess effectiveness and gather insights for improvement. The SparkleFire partnership combines academia, wildfire prevention actors and communication experts from Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal.
With changing patterns, frequency and intensity of fire, engaging with the public in creative ways is becoming increasingly important, not only in Mediterranean regions but also in places that are not usually associated with wildfires, such as northern Europe.
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