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The ultimate goal of Fire Paradox is to influence fire-management policies and practices in Europe. However, because of the diversity of situations, it is not easy to form a consensus about how the different countries and agencies accept the concept of integrated fire management, including the use of fire in prevention and suppression. In France, Portugal and Spain, prescribed fire now is considered an acceptable tool for fuel management. In Italy, some recent developments, mostly related to Fire Paradox, show that the concept is being accepted gradually, whereas no significant developments have been observed in Greece.
The same diversity of situations is true for non-European countries and agencies. Although prescribed fire has been applied successfully in South African pine forests, that is not the situation in Morocco or Tunisia. In Mongolia, the use of prescribed burning has been encouraged recently with the support of Fire Paradox. In Argentina, prescribed fire has been applied mostly on rangelands, and Patagonia has shown a strong renewed interest.
Mostly because of this new interest in the use of prescribed fire in Patagonia, the next plenary meeting of Fire Paradox will be held in Argentina, with participants coming from many other countries in South America. This will be an excellent occasion to disseminate the concept of integrated fire management and to share knowledge between professionals and researchers from the various continents. The final plenary meeting in February 2010 will disseminate to the public the products finalized within the project. It also will promote the continuation of some of the initiatives already started or proposed through annual meetings of fire professionals. Such a forum would promote learning and sharing experiences on the use of fire, as well as cooperating on academic training in the sequence of the International Fire Master Program proposed by the University of Lleida in Spain, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro in Portugal, the University of Idaho and the University of Florida.
Fire Paradox is studying many other aspects of fire, such as the patterns of fire ignition in relation to causes to detect possible trends. Pyrolysis, fire detection, fire anthropology and fire policies also are being reviewed. More information about the project is available at www.fireparadox.org, as well as in presentations from the International Fire Seminar Series promoted by Fire Paradox and the University of Idaho. These include the general approach of the project to integrated fire management by Francisco Rego, a diversity of approaches in modeling by Stefano Mazzoleni and Dominique Morvan, demonstration sites for prescribed burning by Domingo Molina, more integrated approaches to firefighting by Marc Castelnou, and other international experiences by Jim Gould.
Fire Paradox is a large research project on fire that includes various disciplines and approaches, technological developments, and dissemination strategies. But all of those serve the ultimate purpose of influencing policies and practices to consider integrated fire management — with a significant component of fire use — in prevention and suppression.
Dr. Francisco Manuel Cardoso Castro Rego is the International Coordinator for the European Union Fire Paradox Project.
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