Fire Management in Natural and Cultural Heritage Sites and other Protected Areas

World Heritage Sites and other protected areas can be classified with regards to vulnerability, adaptation or dependence on fire. Until now there is limited to none systematic assessment of the negative role of fire, i.e., the threats or already existing degradation / destruction by wildfires, or the positive role of fire in maintaining and stabilizing World Heritage Sites and other protected areas globally; or a requirement of a fire management component.

Therefore the objective of this project is to satisfy, (a) the demand for information on the State of Fire Management in Heritage Sites, and (b) to develop a model to analyse the spatial variation of fire risk in a pilot area, the Mt. Athos area, Greece.

The methodology to be applied is : to use (a) high-resolution satellite imagery, ground truth fuel sampling methods to identify the vegetation characteristics with regards to wildfire hazard (i.e., fuel inventory) and (b) landscape fire behaviour simulations to estimate fine scale burn probabilities, fire effects, and fire sizes under different weather and burn conditions.

This approach will offer a model of wildfire risk assessment and will incorporate landscape effects of large wildfire spread. The results will reveal spatial variation in fire risk factors that is useful in prioritizing fuel treatments and guiding other wildfire risk management activities in Mt. Athos peninsula.

• Survey of the members states heritage sites threatened by forest fires and their fire management

  • International Workshop "Fire Management in Protected Areas and Cultural and Natural Heritage Sites" with members, partners and observers of the Council of Europe / EUROPA Project “Fire Management in UNESCO World Natural and Cultural Heritage Sites and other Protected Areas” (27 June 2014, Freiburg, Germany)

  • Regional Workshop “Transboundary Fire Management in Protected Areas bordering Greece, Albania and ‘The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’” (13 September 2014, Ohrid, “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”)

• Study “Assessing Wildfire Risk in Cultural Heritage Properties Using High Spatial and Temporal Resolution Satellite Imagery and Spatially Explicit Fire Simulations: The Case of Holy Mount Athos, Greece”