Project description
The heat is on to train fire experts
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has warned Europe that climate change conditions – heatwave and droughts – are already resulting in stronger and faster-spreading fires. From 2017 to 2018, super fires fanned by gale force winds left behind 225 dead in the EU Member States - Greece, Portugal, and Spain. The EU-funded PyroLife project will train a new generation of experts in integrated wildfire management. Bringing together knowledge from different countries, scientific disciplines and practices, the project will provide 15 early stage researchers the in-depth, interdisciplinary, integrated and transferable knowledge and skills required to complete their research and maximise future employability. This is the first large and integrated doctoral training programme on handling wildfires management globally.
Objective
2018 was a glimpse of the future: deadly mega-fires in Mediterranean and numerous wildfires in temperate and boreal regions. Traditional mono-disciplinary attitudes cannot solve this challenge: there is a critical need to change management paradigms from fire resistance to landscape resilience: Living with Fire. PyroLife trains the new generation of interdisciplinary experts in holistic integrated fire management, through knowledge transfer between South and NW Europe and application of lessons learned in prevention of floods and other risks. Our unique integrated training program, crucially developed with industry, provides 15 ESRs the in-depth, interdisciplinary, integrated and transferable knowledge and skills required to complete their research and maximize future employability. Individual projects target risk quantification (fire danger, vulnerability, (mega)fire behavior, environmental and economic impacts), risk reduction (fire resilient home, garden and landscape design, prevention and governance), and risk communication (stimulating stakeholder and community resilience and preparedness). PyroLife is original for its inter- and transdisciplinary, intersectoral, cross-risk, and cross-climate approach to training doctoral students and tackling wildfire challenges, connecting 21 diverse partners. The project structures doctoral training by being the first large and integrated doctoral training program on wildfires globally, being a leading example for training of our future leaders. With an exemplary gender balance and diversity in industry and academia, PyroLife combines excellent research and supervision to make an impact on society and economy, through broad dissemination and communication. With the Commission’s Nov 2018 call for integrated fire management to ‘tackle the global EU wildfire problem’, the timeliness of PyroLife cannot be overstated. Funding of PyroLife provides the diverse fire experts Europe urgently needs in academia and practice.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Coordinator
6708 PB Wageningen
Netherlands