European Program for Wildfire-Prepared Communities

ended

Wildfires represent a rising problem in Europe. In recent years, fires of an unprecedented scale and intensity have raged across several EU regions approaching Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) settlements with extraordinary level of damage. The majority of these recent wildfire events involved extremely complex civil protection challenges. Population experienced extraordinarily threats to their lives, their properties, and their businesses, highlighting a widespread lack of wildfire risk awareness and preparedness of affected communities. Inspired by successful international frameworks such as Firewise and FireSmart, and built on existing results from European R&D projects, the general objective of FIREPRIME is to establish the foundations of an EU-wide program that promotes a culture of fire resilience among WUI communities, with the focus on civil protection. FIREPRIME will design at pilot level the program architecture and governance, and will develop and implement a comprehensive toolkit of resources that includes a smartphone app, guidelines, checklists, and educational materials aimed at enhancing wildfire resilience in three critical targets: households, communities, and infrastructure. FIREPRIME's project tools will be developed and tested in three distinct European regions, each with unique fire regimes, ecosystems, and diverse population and social profiles. These pilot sites include the province of Barcelona in Spain (Mediterranean Europe), Tyrol in Austria (Central Europe), and Gothenburg in Sweden (Northern Europe). Inclusivity, responsiveness, and sensitivity to this diversity will be at the core of the tools’ development and implementation process, with collaboration from local stakeholders and WUI communities. The lessons learned from the implementation of FIREPRIME will be used to co-create a strategic plan with interested stakeholders for the sustainable handover and exploitation of the project in other fire-prone regions across Europe.