Webinar Abstract 08.11.24: Early Warning System for forest fires

By project COVALEX staff

Introduction and background

Wildfires can have devastating effects on communities and ecosystems, causing loss of life, property damage, and environmental degradation. Therefore, it is crucial to have an effective Early Warning System (EWS) in place to alert the Civil Protection (CP) system and the population in a timely manner. This ensures the enactment of necessary anticipatory actions and precautions, to minimise behaviours that could lead to wildfires as well as to support timely detection and fast response to eventual ignitions. The UNDRR definition, which consider an EWS as an integrated system comprising different components, including disaster risk knowledge, monitoring and warning services, communication and dissemination, and emergency response capacity.

COVALEX aims to establish a common and extended community of experts on the experience, geographical coverage and diverse sectoral networks in hydrometeorological multi-hazards events. The project is financed by the European Commission through the DG ECHO Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network.

Agenda Highlights and Key Discussions

The webinar, based on the provided agenda, likely covered the following topics:

09:55 - Technical test: This session likely included a check of technical equipment and software to ensure smooth operation for the rest of the webinar.
10:00 - Use of Risico and Propagator for forest fire impact assessment: This session discussed the use of "Risico" and "Propagator" tools for forecasting, monitoring, and assessing the impact of forest fires. These tools are likely used for predicting the spread of fires and evaluating potential damage.
10:30 - Forest fire hazard and susceptibility maps: This presentation focused on creating hazard and susceptibility maps for forest fires. These maps are used to produce a "Forest Fires Danger Bulletin," which informs about the risk levels of fire occurrence in different areas.
10:50 - Question and discussion: The webinar concluded with a Q&A and discussion session, where participants could ask questions and discuss the topics presented.

Description

The webinar was dedicated to share our experience in the establishment of early warning
system for forest fires through the presentation of models and tools that we use to support
the national, regional and local authorities for forecast, monitoring and evaluating the impact of a forest fires. During the sesión, the facilitator talked about the of Risico model and Propagator tools for forecast, monitoring and evaluate the impact of a forest fire. After that we have a focus on Forest fires Hazard and susceptibility maps for production of Forest Fires Danger Bulletin.

During the webinar we mainly dealt with the implementation of early warning systems for forest fires, with a focus on risk models, propagation tools and advanced technologies for monitoring and prevention. Various aspects of emergency management were discussed, including the importance of training, effective communication and the use of digital platforms for information sharing. Finally, an integrated tool for emergency management and civil protection was presented, with the aim of improving disaster response and promoting international cooperation in this area.