Acting on Wildfire Risk: What Practices, Strategies and Policies? - Policy Analysis Reveals the Need for New Approaches

The issue of forest fires has been on-board of the political agenda of the EU since 1980s. This process lead to the establishment of European Union (EU) forest fire prevention legislation in 1992 (EEC 2158/921 and EC/308/972) encouraging Member States to establish forest fire prevention plans. This regulation was complemented with the European Commission Regulation EC 804 of 19943, which provided resources for the development of information on forest fires in the Member States. The data to be included in the national systems would consist of the so-called common core of information on forest fires, which included: (i) time and date of first alert, (ii) time and date of first intervention to extinguish the fire, (iii) time and date when the fire was finally extinguish, (iv) total burned area (split into forest and nonforests), and (v) cause of the fire. Although the mentioned regulations expired in 2002, a new regulation on the monitoring of forest and environmental interactions was established by the EU in 2003 and was referred to as ¿Forest Focus¿ (EU Reg. 2152/20034). This new regulation followed the initiatives of the EU towards developing comprehensive information systems at the European level (San-Miguel-Ayanz et al, 2005). It included the operation of the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), already created by the EC Joint Research Centre in 2000, and the further development of this system regarding the assessment of fire severity, the socio-economic impact of forest fires, as well as, the analysis of forest fire causes. Forest Focus expired in 2006, although the activities of EFFIS continue through the collaboration of the EC with the Member States. Additional initiatives on prevention and response to forest fires in the EU are on-going within the EU Rural Development Regulation and the recent EC communications on disaster prevention and response5 in the EU.

MONTIEL Cristina;  SAN-MIGUEL-AYANZ Jesus; 

2010-02-01

European Forest Institute

JRC56811

978-952-5453-29-4,   

1455-6936,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC56811,