Fighting wildfires, the integrated way
Since its launch in 2021, the EU-funded SILVANUS project has been working on the development of a climate-resilient and novel forest management platform to prevent and suppress forest wildfires. Reaching an important milestone as a result of these efforts, the project recently had its second review meeting with the European Commission’s European Research Executive Agency in Brussels to present the SILVANUS platform to the reviewers. As reported in the project’s news item, the presentation involved individual project partners assuming the roles of the platform’s targeted users – civil protection officers, forest managers, citizens and firefighters – to demonstrate the platform’s effectiveness. They asked about platform features and shared their requirements with regard to integrated wildfire management. The SILVANUS team’s responses highlighted how the platform would meet their needs and enable more successful governance of wildfires. The platform, whose key feature is innovation through integration, provides decision-making support to increase human preparedness, response and recovery in the event of a wildfire. The 24 integrated platform components are the cornerstone of the SILVANUS platform, complementing each other to provide efficient and successful wildfire management. They include an augmented reality/virtual reality training toolkit for firefighters, fire detection and inspection systems using state-of-the-art technologies, as well as a citizen engagement app.
Testing in Czechia
In early June 2024, SILVANUS also conducted a pilot demonstration of its platform in the municipality of Krásná in the Moravian-Silesian region of Czechia. Unlike the first pilot in 2023, during which individual user products were tested, this second pilot involved testing the overall integrated technological platform. The platform components were tested extensively during the pilot demonstration. They included fire detection based on social sensing, fire detection from Internet of Things devices, fire detection at the edge, fire inspection using drones and fire inspection using ground robots. Other components tested were fire spread forecast, a biodiversity profile app, health impact assessment and evacuation route planning. Thorough testing was also conducted on the SILVANUS dashboard, a web-based interface enabling trained personnel to quickly grasp the situation in the field, and on MESH-in-the-Sky, a system establishing robust wireless communication for first responders during critical forest fire operations. About 60 people attended the pilot demonstration exercise. The participants consisted of first responders (firefighters, police, mountain rescuers), researchers, stakeholders (foresters, river management organisation officers), authorities (municipality officers), ICT industry representatives, non-governmental organisations and the media. Complementing the pilot exercise, a workshop was also held at the Technical University of Ostrava’s Faculty of Safety Engineering to introduce the project’s goals, platform and methodologies. Following the success of the Czech pilot, SILVANUS (Integrated Technological and Information Platform for wildfire Management) is planning further demonstrations in another eight countries in autumn this year. For more information, please see: SILVANUS project website
Keywords
SILVANUS, forest, fire, wildfire, pilot, demonstration