FIRE GLOBE – SCIENCE CONNECTIONS
Pyrolife: TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED FIRE MANAGEMENT
REVIEW OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM HELD IN JUNE AND JULY 2020 BY POOJA PANDEY EARLY STAGE RESEARCHER AT PYROLIFE
Intentional or unintentional, fire has always been either a good servant or a poor master, teaching people a way of living and adapting to its ashes and flames for centuries. But current adaptation strategies are changing with increasing fire incidents and with global climate change. Therefore, researchers and scientists are finding new ways to live with fire rather only than finding ways to escape it. A blend of physical science and social science techniques seems to be a good recipe to serve planet earth. Increasing fire incidents and other natural disasters all over the world are affecting not just the land but people’s livelihood and their existence. So, what should be done in this regard? Suppress all such incidents, thereby increasing their future severity? No, rather we must find ways to live with fire, and this is why the Pyrolife Innovative Training Network came into existence. Pyrolife is not merely a project aimed at finding ways to deal with this issue but also to train the future generations of scientists and practitioners to create more fair and resilient societies and to carry the findings and philosophies of the project forward. Pyrolife Innovative Training Network made its public debut in June, 2020 where all 15 PhD candidates and consortium partners took part in the first Pyrolife International Symposium focusing on creating new international links across scientific fields and disciplines in order to understand what integrated fire management could look like across Europe and internationally. The symposium held a total of 15 multidisciplinary webinars that were open to all: more than 400 participants registered every Wednesday from 44
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OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2020
different parts of the world. Though the main focus of Pyrolife is sharing knowledge within Europe, the symposium successfully shed light on lessons learnt from different disciplines in many parts of the world. Dr. Cathelijne Stoof, architect of Pyrolife Innovative Training Network and member of the board of directors at the International Association of Wildland Fire, kicked off the Pyrolife International Symposium 2020 by introducing the project and discussing the need for diversity within the greater wildland fire community and showing paths on how to deal with the challenges as we adopt living with fire. With her reallife experiences in dealing with fire issues, she understands the importance of local knowledge and expertise and how it can be beneficial for planning and in science communication. Dr. Stoof explained how everyone is dealing with the same issue of fire but in a different context, and she suggested: “If we want to move from suppression to integrated fire management, we need to hear all the voices.”
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE WEBINAR Every Wednesday for an hour-and-a-half the experts and the Early Stage Researchers delivered their concerns and excitement on the topics and shared their experiences and opinions with the audience with the help of an interactive Q&A session at the end of every webinar. After an amazing introduction from Dr. Stoof, Marc Castellnou Ribau discussed the lessons learned from the Mediterranean and how they could be helpful for temperate Europe in the context of climate change. The webinar focused on how
