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The Global Fire Monitoring Center - GFMC

Address: Fire Ecology Research Group c/o Freiburg University Georges-Köhler-Allee 75 79110 Freiburg, GERMANY

Creation

 1998

STRUCTURE

President: Johann Georg Goldammer
Temporary staff of the Center: Jessica O'Brien, Dirk Egenhofer

OBJECTIVES 

As a global facility for vegetation fire monitoring, documentation and analysis, GFMC is:

▪  providing scientific and technical advice to governments, regional entities and international organizations, notably the UN, for the development of policies and strategies to reduce the negative impacts of fire on the environment and humanity
▪  serving as Secretariat of the UNISDR Wildland Fire Advisory Group the Global Wildland Fire Network and the International Fire Aviation Working Group; and leader of the UNECE/FAO Team of Specialists on Forest Fire
▪  offering liaison capabilities for providing assistance for rapid assessment and decision support in response to wildland fire emergencies under cooperative agreements with the Joint Environment Unit of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Within the Network of Specialised Euro-Mediterranean Centres of the European and Mediterranean Major Hazards Agreement the GFMC is focussing on cooperation European Centre on Forest Fires (ECFF) (Athens, Greece)

MAIN ACTIVITIES

Fire management at local, national, regional and international levels:
•Local level – Community-based Fire Management (e.g., http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/Manag/CBFiM.htm)
•National to regional levels (e.g., Subsahara Africa: http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/GlobalNetworks/Africa/WFTCA.htm)
•Academic level
 (e.g.,http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/course/uni/BSc-fire-ecology.htm or http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/course/uni/postgraduate-course-wageningen.htm)
•Standards, competence (e.g., www.euro-fire.eu)

Fire ecology and fire management
• Fire ecology general (e.g., http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/feueroekologie/index.html)
•Prescribed Burning in Nature Conservation and Landscape Management (http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/programmes/natcon/natcon.htm)
• Fire Paradox (www.fireparadox.org)
• EuroFire (http://www.euro-fire.eu)

Outreach work to transfer science-based to the policy and management levels:
• UNISDR Wildland Fire Advisory Group (http://www.unisdr.org/eng/task%20force/tf-working-groups4-eng.htm)
• UNISDR Global Wildland Fire Network (http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/GlobalNetworks/globalNet.html)
•FAO/UNECE Team of Specialists on Forest Fire (http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/intro/team.html)
• UNECE/FAO International Forest Fire News (IFFN) (since 1988) http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/iffn/iffn.htm
 

Publications

A web page with the main bibliography is available at: http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/intro/mpi/goldlit.html

conferences

Major policy conferences since 2004
• Convener, regional consultations on cooperation in wildland fire management in Northeast Asia (Korea, 2004; Japan, 2005; Russia, 2006), Southern Africa (South Africa, 2004), South America (Brazil, 2004), Pan-American Region (Costa Rica, 2004), Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, 2004; Russia, 2005, 2006), Southeast Europe (Macedonia, 2005; Slovakia, 2006, Sofia 2007, Skopje 2008), South Asia (Nepal, 2007), support of central America (El Salvador, 2007)
• Co-organizer, 4th International Wildland Fire Conference (Spain 2007)
• Co-organizer, International meeting on "Reducing Risk of Disaster from Catastrophic Wildfires in the Chernobyl Irradiated Forests" (Ukraine, 2007)
• GOFC-GOLD Wildland Fire Early Warning Consultation, Subsahara Africa (Ghana, 2007)
• Convener, National Round Table on Forest Fire Management, Nepal (Kathmandu, 2007)
• Convener, Symposium on Fire Management in Cultural and Natural Landscapes, Nature Conservation and Forestry in Temperate-Boreal Eurasia (Germany, 2008)
• Convener, First International Central Asian Wildland  Fire Joint Conference and Consultation (ICAWFCC): Wildland Fires in Natural Ecosystems of the Central Asian Region. Ecology and Management implications, associated with the First Central Asian Forest Fire  Experiment (Mongolia, 2008)
• Co-organizer of National Round Table on "Reducing Risk of Disaster from Catastrophic Wildfires in the Chernobyl Irradiated Forests" (Ukraine, 2008)
• Converner, regional Southeast Europe / Caucasus consultation meeting on "Regional Co-operation in Forest Fire Management" (Macedonia FYROM, 2008)
• Co-organizer, Pan-Asia Wildland Fire Consultation (South Korea 2009)
• Co-Convener, ITTO National Round Table on Forest Fire Management, Nepal (Kathmandu, 2009)
• Organizer, Wildfires and Human Security "Fire Management on Terrain Contaminated by Radioactivity, Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) and Land Mines" (Kyiv / Chornobyl, Ukraine, 2009)
• Organizer, EU Fire Paradox Closing Meeting (Freiburg, Germany, 2010)
• Co-Convener, Advanced Regional Seminar in Wildland Fire Management (Antalya, Turkey, 2010)
• Co-Convener, International Conference on Cross-Border Forest Fires and Cooperation in their Suppression (Irkutsk, Russian Federation, 2010)
• Co-organizer, 5th International Wildland Fire Conference (South Africa, 2011)