- More than 65 international experts, researchers, and fire service practitioners gathered at CIHEAM Zaragoza for an advanced course on integrated wildfire management, bringing together participants from over 16 countries across the Mediterranean and beyond.
- The course was jointly organised by CIHEAM Zaragoza, the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC), and the Pau Costa Foundation (PCF), with the collaboration of the EU FIRE-RES project, and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).
The Mediterranean region is experiencing increasingly severe wildfire regimes driven by climate change and land abandonment. This has led to a shift from low-intensity fires to highly destructive extreme wildfire events that threaten ecosystems, economies and human lives, particularly in wildland–urban interface areas.
In this context, the advanced course “Tackling Wildfires in the Mediterranean: Towards Integrated Fire Management” was organised by CIHEAM Zaragoza, the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) and the Pau Costa Foundation (PCF) to strengthen technical knowledge, foster cooperation, and promote a more holistic and operational approach to wildfire management.
The course addressed fire both as a natural ecological process and as a growing socio-environmental risk, highlighting the need to move towards integrated fire management that combines prevention, preparedness, response, restoration and landscape adaptation.
Held from 11 to 16 May 2026, the course brought together more than 65 international experts, researchers and fire service practitioners, who participated in person and online from across the Mediterranean region, including Algeria, Italy, Spain, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Türkiye, as well as from further afield, including Argentina, the Czech Republic, North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The programme combined scientific lectures, applied case studies, practical exercises, and field visits to strengthen participants' technical and strategic understanding of wildfire dynamics and management. The technical visit took place in Muntanyes de Prades (Tarragona, Spain) and provided direct insight into prevention planning, silvopastoral practices, and landscape management tools aimed at reducing wildfire risk.
This gathering also created an important platform for international exchange and cooperation. Participants from different Mediterranean and international contexts shared operational experiences and local realities, enriching discussions and promoting collaborative learning. Key conclusions emphasise that understanding fire behaviour, historical fire regimes, and ecosystem dynamics is essential for designing effective management strategies, while tools such as prescribed burning and landscape planning play a central role in reducing vulnerability.
Beyond the technical content, the programme reinforced the importance of regional cooperation between North and South Mediterranean stakeholders and knowledge exchange in addressing increasingly complex wildfire risks under climate change conditions, stressing the importance of governance, policy integration, and cross-sector coordination.
Overall, the course showed strong relevance for Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries, where climatic conditions are intensifying wildfire risk, and provided participants with transferable tools and methodologies adapted to diverse institutional and ecological contexts.
The CIHEAM Zaragoza advanced course successfully demonstrated the importance of integrated fire management as a strategic framework for addressing current and future wildfire challenges in the Mediterranean region. By combining scientific knowledge, operational expertise, policy perspectives, and practical applications, the course contributed to building capacities for more resilient landscapes and communities capable of living with fire in a changing climate.