Lines of action
Training and Operations
The Pau Costa Foundation is a reference platform for organisations dedicated to wildfire management that want to generate a transformation in their training models, for the benefit of their professionals and the organisation itself. Through the design of training plans adapted to each organisation, we offer the knowledge, skills and training necessary for its professionals to be able to carry out the basic, command or management functions that are exercised during a wildfire emergency.
The members of the PCF training area deeply believe that improving safety, organisation and planning of the resources and strategies to be executed in a wildfire emergency begins by unifying action protocols, the use of a common language between intervening organisations and a standardised and certified base training for personnel involved in a fire.
We offer:
- Training with the requirement of quality as a principle and we develop highly qualified education and training, applied to wildfire management.
- Competency-based training and career development within the organisation. To do this, we design and help implement Training Plans based on the identification of the competencies to develop during an emergency and on generating a professional career structure within the organisation itself.
- Knowledge exchange between countries and organizations. We collaborate and work with entities and firefighting services around the world to share experiences and knowledge, carrying out and promoting the exchange of qualified personnel and instructors in wildfire management.
Knowledge and Applied Science
We participate in Research, Development and Innovation projects to promote excellence and new advances in the field of wildfires and weave links between researchers, emergency services and society.
We engage in:
- Applied research to connect emergency services, research and society. We collaborate on projects of scientific excellence with universities and research centers in Europe and America.
- Preparation, coordination and participation of projects in international calls. We seek opportunities to promote the inclusion of the fire community in R&D&i projects.
- We promote innovation and development in the field of emergencies. We participate in consortia with companies and development centers to provide innovative technology tools for emergency management.
Resilient landscapes and societies
We promote the resilience of landscapes through the analysis of landscapes, proposing specific management actions at key points, taking into account the social and cultural specificities of the landscapes. We want to contribute to creating dinamic, economically sustainable rural areas, as the best tool for forest fire risk management. Additionally, we work to achieve a change in the social perception of fire through education, and the promotion of new awareness and adaptation to the reality of wildfires, facilitating community participation.
We promote:
- Technical fire management projects on a massif scale through the planning of forest structures and landscapes that are resilient to wildfires. Fires depend on the topography, meteorology and vegetation of each territory, and for this reason we have been able to verify how each case requires customised prevention infrastructure.
- Value chains in rural territories to make extensive livestock farming and other traditional agricultural practices, economically sustainable in the current context of industrialisation and globalisation. Through the “Ramats de foc” project we promote prescribed silvopasture in key points of the landscape for fire management and thus reduce the fuel load. We value the ecosystem service that shepherds provide so that it is adequately compensated, as well as the products generated by the flocks that the consumer can support with their purchases.
- Vulnerability studies of the territory and critical infrastructure to wildfires. We seek to identify the real risk of fire based on the analysis of the territory, historical fires and simulations to end up relating it to vulnerable elements (houses, industries, protected habitats, crops, etc.) that could generate a civil protection problem, with people and assets involved. We also identify and seek to expand the infrastructure that facilitates the work of the fire-fighting service, such as roads and water points.
- Participatory projects where the residents of the affected area themselves have the opportunity to express their opinion on the measures that must be taken to prevent fires in their municipality or forest massif, the treatments that must be applied and the vulnerable elements of the territory that must be protect the day of the fire.
- Educational and environmental outreach projects to raise awareness about the need to understand fire as an intrinsic element of the landscape with which to live, and the need to manage the risk of wildfires from the perspective of fire ecology. Thus, we offer environmental awareness workshops in schools (MeFiTu), we promote the inclusion of forest fires as a transversal subject in schools and institutes, we create informative materials and we support new educational formats such as art and audiovisual resources.
