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.

The frequency and intensity of climate and weather extremes associated with anthropogenic climate change are increasing and will challenge us in terms of adaptation strategies at the local level. The project Climate Resilient Development Pathways in Metropolitan Regions of Europe (CARMINE) bridges the local and regional scales by providing impact-based decision support services and multi-level climate governance supporting local adaptation, including both traditional and Nature-Based Solutions. CARMINEs overarching goal is to help the metropolitan communities of Europe become more climate resilient, by co-producing knowledge-based tools, strategies, and plans for enhanced adaptation and mitigation actions in line with the Charter of the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change by 2030. To achieve this goal, focusing on the 2030-2035 timeframe and with longer perspectives up to 2050, CARMINE proposes an interdisciplinary approach aiming at (1) co-creation and co-development of decision-support services and guidelines for enhanced resilience and adaptive capacity, including early warning and disaster risk management systems; (2) cooperating closely with local to regional communities (stakeholders and users), decision-, and policy-makers (local authorities) to co-develop cross-sectoral frameworks for adaptation and mitigation actions; (3) delivering science-based R&I roadmaps for multi-level climate governance supporting local adaptation assessments and plans. The CARMINE methodology will be implemented in eight selected Case Study Areas to demonstrate proof of concept and project methodology will be demonstrated through the digital replication of climate and socio-economic characteristics of each area. The co-created knowledge and transferable development pathways from CARMINE will be shared widely via project networks in order to drive adaptation in other metropolitan regions of Europe, and beyond.

With the evolving threat of climate change and the consequences of industrial accidents to becoming more severe, there is an increasing need for First Responders to access reliable and agile information management systems that offer as higher Situational Awareness and better Common Operational Picture. To match with current trends, the RESPOND-A project aims at developing holistic and easy-to-use solutions for First Responders by bringing together the complementary strengths of its Investigators in 5G wireless communications, Augmented and Virtual Reality, autonomous robot and unmanned aerial vehicle coordination, intelligent wearable sensors and smart monitoring, geovisual analytics and immersive geospatial data analysis, passive and active localisation and tracking, and interactive multi-view 360o video streaming. The synergy of such cutting-edge technological advancements is likely to provide high-end and continuous flows of data, voice and video information to First Responders and their Command & Control Centres for predicting and assessing the various incidents readily and reliably, and saving lives more efficiently and effectively, while maximising the safeguarding of themselves, before, during and after disasters. To this end, RESPOND-A envisions at exercising First Responders for getting familiar with the project technological outcomes, and demonstrating their real-world performance and effectiveness in the classified training facilities of our Responder Partners under hydrometeorological, geophysical and technological disaster scenarios.

In the last few years, extreme wildfires have risen to international prominence, with widespread media coverage and political attention triggered by devastating fires in many places of the world, e.g. France, Greece, Italy, Brazil (the Amazon), and California. Such fires get out of control and devastate large areas causing unprecedented losses on biodiversity, emitting huge quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, causing human losses and smoke-related diseases, and ravaging entire neighbourhoods, villages, or even towns. Climate change is among the key drivers of such wildfires. At the same time, wildfire regimes have been profoundly modified by direct (e.g. land-use change, fire suppression policies) and indirect (e.g. climate change) anthropogenic actions. Integrated Fire Management (IFM or sustainable fire management) has been identified by the international fire community as one of the key solutions to address the problem, requiring an interdisciplinary approach. IFM includes sets of actions aimed at reducing the extent and severity of undesired wildfires while maintaining (or improving) biodiversity, ecosystem services and human wellbeing. FIRE-ADAPT aims at addressing the full diversity of fire types and their different contexts by bringing together expertise from across regions from the Mediterranean Basin and Latin America for the purpose of improving our understanding of the role of IFM for wildfire prevention and for enhancing natural and cultural ecosystem services. The consortium has set up six Study Hubs in Mediterranean countries (Spain, France, Italy) and Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina), to facilitate science-practitioner exchanges and to enhance collaborations and networking. The ultimate intention of FIRE-ADAPT is to contribute to improving knowledge on what practices of IFM can enhance carbon abatement and nature-based solution potential, as well as wildfire risk mitigation, in culturally just and meaningful ways.

In EU and Australia, every year thousands of square miles of forests and other lands burn due to wildfires. These fires cause important economic and ecological losses, and often, human casualties. Both EU and Australian governments are aware of how crucial it is to improve wildfires’ management and containment . Scientists from different specialties, both in EU and Australia, have already developed methods and models in order to improve the management and decision process pertaining to preparedness and response phases in case of bushfire. The present project, named Geospatial based Environment for Optimisation Systems Addressing Fire Emergencies (GEO SAFE), aims at creating a network enabling the two regions to exchange knowledge, ideas and experience , thus boosting the progress of wildfires knowledge and the related development of innovative methods for dealing efficiently with such fires. More precisely, the GEO SAFE project will focus on developing the tools enabling to set up an integrated decision support system optimizing the resources during the response phase, through: • Developing a dynamic risk cartography of a region with regard to the possibility of a wildfire. The task will involve data collection (satellite and remote sensors), risk analysis and development of a tool enabling to forecast fire extension i, and in particular to predict fire and risk evolution during the response phase • Designing and testing a resource allocation tool for the response phase using the dynamic risk cartography. One of the problems to consider will be the resource allocation for securing key places (schools, hospitals, ….) given time dependent constraints. Problems will be identified through connections with final users, and the proposed solutions will be tested on simulated data. • Developing analyses of relevant management processes as well as training tools in order to facilitate the implementation of such solutionto be completed