Forest Fires in Central Europe – Preparing for a New Reality: International conference in Dresden

This week, specialists in forest fire research from all over Europe will travel to Dresden for a three-day conference at TU Dresden from October 10 to 12. This is the first time that leading experts in fire research will meet with representatives from science, forestry and fire brigades from Central Europe at the event “Extreme Fires: past trends and future scenarios" to discuss this urgent topic.

The conference is being held under the umbrella of the FirEUrisk project (https://fireurisk.eu), which receives support from the European Commission. Thirty-eight partners, including TU Dresden’s Faculty of Environmental Sciences, have joined forces to improve forest fire management as well as to transfer knowledge and experience over to Central and Northern Europe that has been gained from Mediterranean countries at risk of extreme fires. The focus lies on fires that break out under extreme conditions and endanger human lives.

This past summer’s forest fires underpin the urgency of this dialogue. Sustained periods of drought and heat waves created the perfect storm for the unprecedented scale of the 2022 forest fires in Central Europe. Even mountainous regions right in our backyards were affected, such as Bohemian and Saxon Switzerland on the German-Czech border.

FirEUrisk’s mission is to develop an integrated strategy for managing fires in Europe. This strategy comprises all forest fire prevention and protection phases – assessing the risk of fire, exercising damage control, and adapting to new climate conditions.

The members of the FirEUrisk consortium and invited experts will use the symposium as a platform for sharing the latest developments in assessing, mitigating and adapting to fire risks. Experts from Germany, Czechia and Austria will outline the challenges of handling the changing risks of forest fire in Central Europe and what is needed for improved management. Climate change means extended and intensified periods of hot, dry periods conducive to wildfires. Therefore, all regions in Central Europe must work together to develop, improve or adapt the way they manage fire risks.

The first two days of the event are dedicated to a plenary meeting, while the symposium will be opened up to media representatives from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm on October 12 to pose their questions to the experts.
Registration is required. Simply send an email to .

Detailed information on the event “Fires in Central Europe – Preparing for a New Reality” can be found at https://tu-dresden.de/bu/umwelt/geo/ipf/envrs/die-professur/news/fireurisk-symposium-forest-fires-in-central-europe-preparing-for-a-new-reality-12-october-2022.

Contact: 
Junior Prof. Dr. Matthias Forkel
Junior Professor of Environmental Remote Sensing
TU Dresden
Email:
Tel.: +49 351 463 32270