The final FIRE-RES conference, “Towards a Wildfire-Resilient Europe: From Knowledge to Policy Action” held on 4 and 5 November 2025 in Brussels, marked a pivotal moment in Europe’s fight against extreme wildfires. Bringing together over 120 participants, including policymakers, Members of the European Parliament, researchers, practitioners, and civil society representatives, the two-day event showcased four years of collaborative innovation and, most importantly, created a shared roadmap for turning knowledge into actionable policy and practice.
Extreme Wildfire Events are escalating, and climate change
has made them up to 40 times more likely. Impacts will continue to grow unless
Europe acts decisively on prevention, adaptation, and coordination. Building
from these premises, FIRE-RES delivered and showcased a portfolio of solutions that
can underpin a holistic approach to creating resilient landscapes.
Designing Multifunctional Landscapes
Among the many questions addressed by the project, the design and management of multifunctional landscapes was a prominent focus. While a significant part of FIRE-RES achievements has been compiled on this platform, experts were invited to reflect on the topic in a dedicated session. Some highlighted that while knowledge exists, the challenge is translating it into practice. With 15 million forest owners across Europe, engaging local stakeholders remains difficult but essential. Meaningful exchanges also revolved around the importance of aligning wildfire resilience with EU policies and funding instruments. Ultimately, the philosophy of FIRE-RES considers people, policy, and landscapes as all part of resilience; silos and single-sector solutions are acknowledged as insufficient. Instead, proactive investment in fire-resilient communities, integrated fire management, and landscape-scale planning must guide Europe’s next steps.
From Reactive Suppression to Proactive Management
The event also focused on how to complement reactive fire suppression, which is insufficient in case of extreme events, with proactive, landscape-scale fire management across the EU. Central to this dialogue was the recognition that fire management begins with communication, moving from a government-driven model to a whole-of-society approach. Citizens are not victims: they can actively contribute to resilient landscapes if empowered with knowledge and tools.
🔑How do we move from theory to practice? @EU_Commission @EUAgri @EU_ENV , @CEPF_EU & @isagronomia discuss policy, funding and the role of people in shaping fire-resilient landscapes 🔥
— FIRE-RES (@FIRERESProject) November 4, 2025
Panel moderated by Ruth Ryan #FIRERESevent pic.twitter.com/j96TYdRaDs
Innovations in Integrated Fire Management
Many FIRE-RES innovations showed the path towards an integrated fire management by embracing the ecological role of fire. Others, such as the FIRE-RES Integrative Umbrella System, were presented as a crucial tool for quantifying risk, predicting fire behaviour, and guiding investment and mitigation strategies. Economic incentives, strategic subsidies, and insurance mechanisms were identified as vital levers to encourage mitigation actions. Resilience must be practical, adaptable, and locally informed, balancing ecological, economic, and social considerations.
Financing Resilient Landscapes
At the same time, the challenge of financing fire-resilient landscapes has guided a major share of the project’s efforts during the past four years. As advocated by FIRE-RES, Europe’s landscapes cannot recover sustainably without economic models and incentives that make fire management financially viable and scalable. Insurance emerged as a key tool to soften risks and encourage investment, while education ensures that forest owners and communities understand and can access these solutions. Innovative mechanisms like the Forest Resilience Bond, illustrated by Blue Forest, were showcased as examples of how market-based approaches can mobilise funding for large-scale forest restoration and fire resilience projects. Across discussions, the message was clear: financial tools must complement technical and social solutions, with public-private partnerships helping to bridge the gap between emergency response and long-term prevention.
Governance and Policy Integration
This event also represented an important chance to situate fire-resilient landscapes in the wider governance and policy framework. Effective governance ensures that scientific knowledge informs decision-making, resources are allocated strategically, and local communities are empowered to implement resilience measures. Not only FIRE-RES contributed to a joint proposal for an integrated wildfire risk management strategy under the coordination of Firelogue and in harmony with the other Horizon 2020 Green Deal Call-funded projects, but it also conducted significant work in policy clinics and regional case studies.
Discussions during the conference highlighted the importance of policy coherence, multi-level coordination, and inclusive stakeholder engagement. Alongside this, the second day brought the conversation to a higher level, convening experts and policymakers around a shared table. The roundtable featuring interventions from Oscar Ordeig, Catalonia’s Regional Minister of Agriculture, MEP Andrey Kovatchev, Tiago Oliveira, Chairman of the AGIF board of directors, Miguel Ángel Herrera, Mayor of Genalguacil, Katerina Trepekli, Advisor for the Minister for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Greece, Christophe Orazio, Chief Executive Officer of the European Institute of Planted Forest (IEFC) and Cathelijne Stoof, Associate Professor in Pyrogeography at Wageningen University.
Avui hem assistit a la jornada final del projecte europeu @FIRERESProject. Agents públics i privats de 13 països han creat coneixement i tècnica per gestionar més eficaçment els incendis forestals extrems i augmentar la consciència, i l'actuació sobre el medi, per prevenir-los https://t.co/jxgIFbAhgN
— Bombers (@bomberscat) November 4, 2025
Voices from the local Communities
One intervention stood out not only for its passion but for its clarity: the voice of rural communities living on the frontlines of wildfire risk. Miguel Ángel Herrera, Mayor of Genalguacil, a small Andalusian village of 500 citizens, shared the story of his community and the devastating 2021 fires that destroyed 10,000 hectares of forest and farmland.
“When we talk about fires, we talk about humans, who used to live in the countryside and did not want to do anything else than being able to maintain their way of life. Now, they have made it nearly impossible for us to live there.”
Mayor Herrera emphasised that the roots of wildfire disasters are not just environmental but social and political. Decades of rural depopulation, restrictive laws, and forest mismanagement had left the territory vulnerable. He called for a fundamental rethink of how Europe values rural communities and described how Genalguacil has built local capacity for wildfire response, combining generations of local knowledge with formal firefighting efforts. For Mayor Herrera, supporting rural areas is inseparable from sustainability and resilience:
“Sustainability is not about doing vertical gardening in the city; it’s about taking care of the forest. And there are no sustainable cities if we don’t get sustainable rural areas.”
Throughout the roundtable moderated by FIRE-RES project coordinator Antoni Trasobares (CTFC), participants explored opportunities for cross-country collaboration, stronger leadership, and a European fire community capable of sharing knowledge, harmonising procedures, and integrating prevention into EU policy. The discussion made clear that wildfire resilience requires more than technology: it demands social engagement, inclusive governance, and sustained political commitment.The message clearly resonates with the place-based approach and participatory governance practices tested in the local communities of the FIRE-RES Living Labs.
The regional voices of the project converged on one point: maintaining trust, continuity, and institutional support is essential to ensure that FIRE-RES innovations continue to take root and scale across Europe. As FIRE-RES nears its conclusion, the innovations nurtured in the last four years prepare their transition to a long-term thinking perspective: future adoption will depend on engaging users early, grounding solutions in community needs, ensuring economic value for rural areas, and embedding innovations within policy frameworks. A lasting impact will require bundling complementary solutions, strengthening local engagement structures, and establishing clear pathways for uptake, whether through partners, external actors, or institutional integration.
