THE EUROPEAN FOREST FIRE FIGHTING COUNCIL (EUFORFIRE) AS CONTINENTAL REFERENCE POINT FOR DISCUSSION ON FIRE FIGHTING ORGANIZATION AND TRAINING ACTIVITIES

In many European countries, especially in Mediterranean region, the last decades have been characterized by deep changes in land use, mainly due to land abandonment, which have modified both forest extension and structure, causing a general increment of fuel accumulation. These changes, added to climate change conditions, are causing an increasing dramatic wildfire spread year by year. Catastrophic fire events are characterized by being often beyond the suppression capacity in large areas, including the wildland urban interface (WUI), generating heavy damages on goods and people, including fatalities. In these conditions the task of managing a wildfire is becoming more complex than in the past years, requiring well trained fire fighters able to deal with the new operative conditions. In this context, improvements are required, and it is fundamental to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness in forest fire prevention and fight by means of international collaboration. In the surroundings of MEFISTO project (Mediterranean forest fire fighting training standardization) a very important Memorandum of Understandings have been signed by some of the most important Mediterranean organizations involved in fire fighting and fire fighter training, founding EUFORFIRE – European forest fire fighting council. EUFORFIRE is a new volunteer organisation interested in creating and enlarging a group of stakeholders in the field of forest fires, and especially in the field of training activities. It has been created to answer to the increasing needs of new solutions and better preparedness level of fire fighting organizations against forest fires. The main aims of EUFORFIRE are: i) to share organizational models and their development; ii) to collaborate in exchanging information on trainings of forest fire fighters and evaluation procedures; iii) to develop a list of figures comparable with each national structure; iv) to improve collaboration between countries, especially against big fires. In this contribution the structure, the role and the functions of EUFORFIRE are reported and explained in detail.