Building Wildfire Resilient Communities in Europe (FIRES): 2023-2028
The FiRES project is a 5-year project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. It focuses on wildfires as a critical example of the type of climate-related hazards that large parts of Europe increasingly face. It recognizes that Europe has a unique opportunity to tackle the growing wildfire challenge by empowering communities and civil protection personnel with two-way knowledge and skills now before the threat becomes acute across the continent.
In order to co-exist with wildfire, an in-depth understanding is needed of the factors that enable people and communities to prepare, survive, and recover from wildfires - practically and mentally. The Geographies of Disaster Group therefore apply qualitative research methods to learn from and with residents, community champions, and civil protection personnel in diverse rural and wildland-urban interface sites that range from the fire-prone Mediterranean to the growing risk of wildfires in the Alps and northern Europe.
Updates about the research and the Group's achievements are available on the project's website.
