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active Human Response to Wildfires Outbreak: Measu.. (PRoMPt)
active Human Response to Wildfires Outbreak: Measure and Prepare for it
(PRoMPt)
Start date: Sep 30, 2008,
End date: Sep 29, 2011
PROJECT
FINISHED
The aim of the suggested project is to exchange experiences and good practices in order to improve regional policies for coping with fires right after their outbreak in very sensitive areas, like the forest ones.Since regional policies in terms of environmental protection and risk prevention constitute a vital issue towards the accomplishment of the Gothenburg Strategy, local and regional authorities in EU need to further work towards a more close and effective cooperation on such issues. This project, based on previously related activities focused on risk management, intends to move further and deal with exchange of experiences and good practices on methods, action plans or even tools, addressing the forest fires danger and crisis management right after the outbreak of a fire, and in particular, a wild one. Thus, the whole work is going to be analysed from the viewpoint of the readiness to act promptly and efficiently in order to avoid as much as possible hugehuman, animal and agricultural losses, as well as forest disasters.Towards this perspective, a booklet entitled "Wildfires' Survival Guide for All", tackling issues such as, correct, focused (or personalised) and on-time information and preparation of the population to confront the outbreak of a fire, will be published. Well-structured education programs and training sessions for effective areas' evacuation to avoid as much as possible human and animal losses, as well as strategic emergency response exercises to achieve rapid restoration of the affected areas, will be developed. A handbook named Wildfires Response: Best Cases Study Collection and the "Benchmarking on Readiness Indicators" conclusions will take the form of official policy documents in order to become the common base for the future adoption and application of such practices. Furthermore, the above results could also be proved useful to other similar regions of the EU and be used as a "reference" documentfor the improvement of the commonly agreed policies on the aforementioned issues inside the EU.For the benefit of the validation of the Wildfires Response: Best Cases Study Collection and the simulations and contingency planning that will be elaborated, exersices on selected sites inside the forestry areas of the participants' territories will be implemented.A successful procedure for the widespread dissemination of the results will be followed. Towards this goal, the organisation of the final conference in the historical site of Ancient Olympia, deeply suffered by wildfires last summer, will act as a pan-European meeting on improvement policies for proactive human response to wildfires outbreak. A DVD with comprehensive content, info-corners in focal points of the partners' target areas and the set-up of an information site, acting as the main information area concerning awareness-raising and emergency response for the population, will guarantee the sustainability of the results. Achievements: The aim of the PRoMPt project is to exchange experiences and good practices in order to improve regional policies for coping with fires right after their outbreak in very sensitive areas, like the forest ones. The project, based on previously related activities focused on risk management, intends to move further and deal with exchange of experiences and good practices on methods, action plans or even tools, addressing the forest fires danger and crisis management right after the outbreak of a fire, and in particular, a wild one. Thus, the whole work is going to be analysed from the viewpoint of the readiness to act promptly and efficiently in order to avoid as much as possible huge human, animal and agricultural losses, as well as forest disasters. Towards this perspective, a booklet entitled "Wildfires' Survival Guide for All", tackling issues such as, correct, focused (or personalised) and on-time information and preparation of the population to confront the outbreak of a fire, will be published. Well-structured education programs and training sessions for effective areas' evacuation to avoid as much as possible human and animal losses, as well as strategic emergency response exercises to achieve rapid restoration of the affected areas, will be developed. A handbook named Wildfires Response: Best Cases Study Collection and the "Benchmarking on Readiness Indicators" conclusions will take the form of official policy documents in order to become the common base for the future adoption and application of such practices. The project started with its kick-off meeting (and 1st SC Meeting) in Patras (December 2008) and progressed through a number of events in order to set-up and make its partners' network mobilised and active towards the achievement of its aim and objectives. The 2nd SC Meeting in Macerata (April 2009) saw the formulation of the 3 Working Groups and the extensive discussions of their thematic perspectives. The project continued with two (2) Info Days in Saragoza and Laga in Teramo and set the foundations for the development of the Short Territorial Status Report. Following, the Staff Exchange in Diacopto (September 2009), the Awareness Day in Teramo (October 2009), the 3rd SC Meeting in Zaragoza (October 2009) and the Info Day in Poland (December 2009) describe the up-to-now activities and the continuous exchange of Good Practices and collection of experiences among the project's partners. More specifically for the Working Groups, their thematic collaboration is based on multi-regional information about state-of-the-art methods, techniques, instruments, plans, information systems, used and enriched from the experts and stakeholders point of view. The global knowledge for the examined subject has already formed the base for more demanding work related to the identification of the best cases, the application of adaptive methods and the development of a new improved approach for the disasters' readiness indicators. The project is currently going through a very dynamic stage of enforcing its operations within all participating countries and it is anticipated that it will progress through the next semester by collecting experiences -through networking and exchanging of Good Practices- to reach the ultimate stage of setting the benchmarking indicators and the later involvement of experts in the field of fire fighting.