ECFF is accommodated and run at the headquarters of the General Secretariat for Civil Protection in Athens. The Center is administrated by two committees: the Administration Committee and the Scientific Committee. Both the Administration and Scientific Committees are appointed by the Government of the Hellenic Republic on the basis of proposals put forward by the Council of Europe. ECFF is supported at FIACTU/NTUA and collaborates, in agreement with the Council of Europe, with Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC). GFMC is an institution of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, located in the campus of Freiburg University, Germany.
The Centre focuses on chemical and civil protection issues; forest fire smoke health impacts on the firefighters and the exposed population, risk analysis and safety issues, personal protective equipment (PPE) and field chemical analysis with mobile instruments as a tool for early detection and identification of a hazardous environment. In addition, the Center processes research projects and case studies for transferring knowledge and know-how from research groups to relevant organizations.
Other objectives include evaluation of new technologies, means and methods used for applications in forest fire early detection systems and fire frightening suppression tactics.
MAIN ACTIVITIES
Studies
Short and long term effects of forest fires smoke on fire-fighters and population, chemical and toxicological issues.
Methods and technologies for monitoring air quality during forest fires.
Scientific Work
Statheropoulos M. and Goldammer J.G., Vegetation Fire Smoke: Nature, Impacts and Policies to reduce negative consequences on humans and the environment European and Mediterranean Major Hazards Agreement (EUR-OPA), 4th International Wildland Fire Conference, Sevilla, Spain, 13-17 May 2007.
Dissemination activities
Workshops
"European Planning and Policies for Forest Fires" (Athens, October 2004). The main aim of the workshop was to identify the causes of the devastating large-scale forest fires of summer 2003 in Europe (FFNet No 2).
“Air quality monitoring in the field and personal protective equipment in big forest fire incidents: a state of the art and beyond” (Paris, December 2005). The workshop was meant to be a sampler of cutting-edge technologies for air-quality monitoring in emergency situations (FFNet No 4).
“Human Rights in Disasters: Search and Rescue Operations in Disasters especially for vulnerable people”(Athens, November 2009).The aim of the workshop was to develop a network of people and organizations which will encourage and reinforce research and development of procedures capable of supporting vulnerable groups in case of a natural disaster. This was a joint effort with the Council of Europe and the National Technical University of Athens, in the framework of the FP7 project “ SGL for USaR-Second Generation Locator for Urban Search and Rescue Operations”(http://www.sgleu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11%3Ahuman-rights-in-disasters-workshop&Itemid=7) (FFNet No 6).
PUBLICATIONS
ECFF publication: Forest Fire Net (FFNet)
FFNet No 1 (2003): ECFF inauguration meeting in Athens: Structure and objectives.
FFNet No 2 (2004): European Planning and Policies for Forest Fires: Lessons learned from forest fires of Summer 2003 in Europe.
FFNet No 3 (2005): Special Issue with the proceedings of the Teleconference “Short and long term health impacts of forest fire smoke on the firefighters and the exposed population”.
FFNet No 4 (2006): Special Issue with the proceedings of the workshop “Air quality monitoring in the field and personal protective equipment in big forest fire incidents: a state of the art and beyond”.
FFNet No 5 (2007): Forest fires in Greece during summer 2007: The data file of a case study.
FFNet No 6 (2009): Special Issue with the proceedings of the Workshop “Human rights in Disasters: Search and Rescue Operations in Disasters especially for vulnerable people”.
FFnet No 7 (2010): Special Issue with the proceedings of the Teleconference “Recent Developments and Needs for Wildfire Fighting on the Ground: Tactics and Technologies”.
"Short and Long Term Effects of Forest Fire Smoke on Fire-Fighters and Population" (Athens, May 2005). Video-conference co-organized by ECFF and NTUA. The aim of the event was to bring together scientists and operational people in order to define key aspects and to propose further actions needed for copying with forest fire smoke health impacts.
“Recent developments and needs for ground methods and tools for forest fire suppression” (Athens, June 2010). Video-conference co-organized by ECFF, NTUA and GFMC. Main topics of the video-conference agenda were tactics and training in ground forest fire suppression, technologies and ground means used.
