The Municipality of Tondela (Portugal), with the help of ADAI (WUIWATCH partner) and the Voluntary Firefighters of Tondela Vale de Besteiros, are celebrating a workshop on forest fires and wildland-urban interface the next 20th of May. In it several subjects will be presented and discussed, on fire behaviour and consequences and the importance of community education, and the training of Civil Protection agents. You find more info and registration forms at the Tondela Cityhall page. This is a good example of commitment of a local Administration for the understanding and awareness of WUI problems at local scale.

Researchers from the University of Leicester have obtained a map of WUI distribution across Europe, showing countries most at risk of catastrophic fire damage. Here you find a link to the full article.

Date: 21/04/2016   Hour: 10:00 CET   Room: https://zoom.us/j/640311947
The response to wildfires that affect WUI, and the emergencies that it creates, involves the management of large amounts of information (fire potential, changing fire behavior, population in risk, resources, etc.) in a rapidly changing environment that may overwhelm emergency responders. 

The ICFF-WUI will take place in Aix en Provence, France, the next 25-27th of May 2016, organised by IRSTEA in the French Academy for Fire, Rescue and Civil Protection Officers (ENSOSP, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Officiers de Sapeurs-Pompiers), near Aix en Provence. More details in the Conference Website

The WUIWATCH research team at the Testing and Research Centre of the Entente (CEREN) in France have conducted a series of essays on the endurance of protective equipment used by firefighters of the SDIS 13 - Sapeurs Pompiers des Bouches du Rhône. An initial preparatory test has been carried out to determine the period of sustained heat flux above 20 kW/m2 emitted by a 2x2m fire panel, equivalent to a real exposure to radiative heat in a WUI situation. A second battery of tests have been performed to identify the damage intensity on the fire equipment actually used by firefighters. A first set of conclusions have been obtained, showing that the expected damage is uneven, being more intense in the upper part of legs. Some videos available at the WUIWATCH YouTube Channel :

Please visit the wuiwatch's Youtube channel and check the videos of the presentations given at the 2nd International wuiwatch Workshop, held in Lousã (Coimbra, Portugal) on the 20th of November 2015. You can see the presentations as given by each speaker (in portuguese or english) and a translated version (in english and portuguese, respectively): WUIWATCH_2nd_Workshop_videos. You can also find the PDF files from the presentations and the program here: WUIWATCH_2nd_workshop_presentations_(PDF)

20/11/2015. The past 20th of November we celebrated the 2nd wuiwatch Workshop on House Vulnerability in the WUI in the CEIF-ADAI Fire Lab, near Lousa, Portugal. Around 100 attendees participated in the lectures, round table and discussions. Civil Protection of Portugal (ANPC – District of Coimbra), National Guard (GNR-GIPS), National Laboratory of Civil Engineering, Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF), Firefighters, private companies, municipalities and the wuiwatch Consortium among several others completed a multi-disciplinary, international group which shared knowledge and experience on house protection and vulnerability to forest fires. Several demonstrations were carried out and the workshop concluded with a visit to the Forest Fire Laboratory LEIF-ADAI.

08/10/2015 How can different types of window blinds protect windows against wild fire? WUIWATCH is trying to explore this subject. @LEIF (Lousã- Portugal). WUIWATCH experiments in LEIF

July has been a month with high activity in WUI Fires in all the Mediterranean Basin, but especially in Iberian Peninsula, Greece and France with some small fires in Italy. Here we’ve done a little... Pau Costa Foundation - Fires 2015 in WUI