This project addressed the identified needs in the European Commission's report "Forest Fires - Sparking Fire Smart Policies in the EU" (2018), and in the "Land-based Wildfire Prevention - Principles and Experiences on Managing Landscapes, forests, and Woodlands for Safety and resilience in Europe" from the European Commission (March 2021). It successfully achieved the following objectives: i) Trained people in rural areas and neighbouring regions on "how to act in case of a fire." ii) Transferred skills on fire prevention to rural area populations. iii) Consolidated actions to enhance resilience to forest fires in rural areas. iv) Contributed to forest and life preservation. v) Increased the safety of populations by implementing readiness programs dedicated to civilians. vi) Created one comprehensive training module and several training materials on self-protection against forest fires and forest fire prevention.
The goal of the project and its primary impact was the preservation of the environment and the social inclusion of rural communities through the promotion of their readiness and resilience against forest fires. For this purpose, adult rural communities were trained in forest fire prevention (as background knowledge), and in self-protective, preventive and reactive actions. This approach aligns with the "current policy challenges" identified in the European Commission's report "Forest Fires - Sparking firesmart policies in the EU" (2018), which emphasized "shifting the focus from suppression to prevention and increasing the awareness and preparedness of populations at risk" and "ensuring communities' resilience to the danger of forest fires, requiring an improvement in the knowledge of actual exposure to the risk and effective response in the event of an emergency." The main target groups were adults in rural communities and local policymakers. The partnership represented five of the six EU-28 countries with the largest percentage of burnt area between 2008 and 2018. It also included Turkey as a large non-EU-28 country with a percentage of burnt area comparable to that of the partners in this project.