Forest Policy and Economics 29 (2013) 19–25
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Forest Policy and Economics
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The European Forest Fire Information System in the context of environmental policiesof the European Union☆
Jesús San-Miguel-Ayanz a,⁎, Ernst Schulte b, Guido Schmuck a, Andrea Camia a
a Institute for Environment and Sustainability, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Via Fermi, 1, Ispra I-21027, Italyb Nature, Biodiversity & Land Use, Directorate General Environment European Commission, Avenue de Beaulieu 5, 1160 Brussels, Belgium
☆ This article belongs to the Special Issue: Fire Use PoSolving the Fire Paradox.⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0332 786138
fax: +39 0332 9803.E-mail address: [email protected] (
1389-9341/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. Allhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2011.08.012
a b s t r a c t
a r t i c l e i n f oArticle history:Received 11 January 2011Received in revised form 5 July 2011Accepted 15 August 2011Available online 20 August 2012
Keywords:Forest firesEU policyForest protectionForest monitoring
Since themid-20th century, countries in Europe have been organized to record information on forest fires and theireffects. These initiatives were established at regional and often national level, without major interaction amongcountries in Europe. With the expansion of the European Union in the 1980s, when Mediterranean countrieswere incorporated in the EU, the issue of forest fires increased in relevance, mainly due to the damages caused byfires in the natural areas of these countries. Initial EU policies related to fires date back to the 1980s, in which theEuropean Union elaborated the first voluntary Regulations to support the development of forest fire informationsystems in the countries. Although EU environmental policies promoted the development of national systems, thefirst steps towards the development of a European fire information system did not take place until the late 1990s.Such a system was initially discussed between the European Commission services and the Member States in1998. Although the development of the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) started at this time, its of-ficial establishment came only in place with the publication of the Forest Focus regulation in 2003, which includedwithin its implementation rules the reference to EFFIS. Since its establishment, EFFIS has influenced the further de-velopment of EU environmental policies on forest protection. It has further shaped the link of these to other forestand regional policies, which, although not fire-specific, did address the issue of damages caused by fires to the Eu-ropean environment and its population. Thepresent article describes the steps in the development of the EUfire pol-icies and EFFIS. It provides a synoptic view of how fires are included in different sectoral policies of the EU, andsuggests ways in which the continuation of forest fire monitoring and management may be included in future Eu-ropean policies.
© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Fires are an integral component of European landscapes. Humanshave lived with fire and used it in their agricultural and rural activities;fires were used to improve soil condition and clear fields through strawburning and to clear areas for cattle raising for centuries. However, theincrease in population density in Europe, especially in the Mediterra-nean region, has led to an increased number of uncontrolled fires.Two effects should be considered when analyzing the effects of popula-tion density with regard to the number of fires. Increase in populationdensity during the peak of the fire season leads to higher number ofignition sources, as often forest areas are used for recreation. However,abandonment of rural areas by the local population has decreased theuse of the forests and their products and has led to accumulation offuels, increasing fire risk and the number of uncontrolled fires.
licies and Practices in Europe:
(mob.), +39 3481411403;
J. San-Miguel-Ayanz).
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Currently, Europe suffers approximately 65,000 fires every year,which burn, on average, half a million hectares of forested areas(European Commission, 2010). The trend of forest fires and burnt areasin the European Mediterranean region is presented in Fig. 1.
In this region, humans cause most of the fires (over 95%). Thehighest percentage of these is linked to agricultural practices in therural areas (APAS, 2003). Uncontrolled fires that reach a certain sizeare the main cause of environmental damages in southern Europe.Most of the damage is due to a small percentage of the total numberof fires; approximately 75 to 80% of the total burnt area is the result offires larger than 50 ha, which corresponds to a small fraction (in theorder of 2.6% for the period 1980 to 2006) of the total number offires (San-Miguel-Ayanz and Camia, 2009).
The issue of damages caused by forest fires became evident in the1980s, when large fire episodes occurred in southern Europe. Thisreality triggered the request of European Institutions, especially the Eu-ropean Parliament, for additional measures to be taken in relation toforestfires (EuropeanParliament, 1983, 1989, 1991). However, an accu-rate knowledge of the number of fires and their effects at the Europeanlevel required some level of harmonization of the information availablein the countries and its aggregation to the continental level
Fig. 1. Trend of forest fires and burnt areas in the EU Mediterranean region.
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(San-Miguel-Ayanz et al. 2002, 2006). European-wide data on forestfires was necessary to regulate its use in the rural environment and toestablish an information system that would support forest firemanage-ment. This would help in providing guidelines for forest fire preventionand fire fighting when the nature of the fires is such that threatens en-vironmental or human assets (Council Regulation, 1986, 1987, 1989a,1989b). First initiatives focused on collecting a basic set of informationon forest fires at the European level. Data to be collected had necessarilyto be a subset of the information already collected by some of the mostaffected countries, as the Commission was only co-financing the collec-tion of the data (Council Regulation, 1992). Additionally, measures to beimplemented at the European level should also encourage setting updata collection mechanisms in those countries in which information offorest was not yet collected, and the exchange of knowledge and bestpractices (Council Regulation, 1994).
The administrative organization of the European Union and itscountries is not ideal to setting up standardized procedures for forestmonitoring, as Forestry is not part of the Common European UnionPolicy and therefore countries have no obligation to abide to anyEuropean legislation. Currently, the only general framework fordevelopment of measures related to forestry is the EU Forestry Strategy(Council Resolution, 1998). The European situation is quite diversewhen compared to territories of similar dimensions. Two aspects arekey for the development of policies and initiatives: first, Europe ismade up of many countries with different languages, policies andadministrations related to the issue of forest fires, and second, there isno Common legislation that permits a development of enforcedcommonmonitoring approaches. Nevertheless, the European countriesand the European Commission have worked together in the last20 years to set up common forest monitoring approaches, despite thefact that geographic differences and diverse interests in the fire issuesamong European countries have slowed down this process.
2. First initiatives of the EU in relation to forest fires
The first steps for the collection of harmonized information on forestfires were established in the context of European Council Regulations of1992, and 1994 (Council Regulations, 1992 and 1994). Since fires wereconsidered a threat for the environment and for the population,especially in the Mediterranean region, additional measures related toforest fire prevention were established in the context of the EU ruraldevelopment policies (Council Regulation, 1999).
In 1992 especial regulations were established to improve forestprotection against fires and, subsequently, to establish forest fireinformation systems in the countries through Regulation 2158/92(Council Regulation, 1992). This replaced previous regulations(Council Regulation, 1986, 1987, 1989a, 1989b) and focused on im-proved forest protection by first reducing the number of forest fireoutbreaks, and second by reducing the extent of burnt areas. Thenew regulation included the setting up or the improvement of forest
fire prevention measures (e.g. firebreaks) and the improvement offorest monitoring systems (e.g. fixed or mobile monitoring facilities).Member States were asked to classify their territory according to thedegree of forest fire risk; initially, the whole territory of Portugal,Spain, and Greece was considered as high fire risk areas. Additionally,MS were also asked to determine areas at medium risk, being thosethe ones where fire risk is not permanent or cyclical, but representsa threat to forest ecosystems and to send to the EC fire protectionplans for the areas classified as high and medium risk.
In relation to forest fire information, the Reg. 2158/92mentioned thatcoordination andmonitoring activities should include assistance from theCommunity to helpMS set up forest fire information systems. This wouldpromote exchange of information on forest fires, the evaluation of mea-sures adopted by the MS and Commission to prevent them, and evalua-tion of the periods, degree and causes of fire risk. The achievements ofthese objectives would ultimately lead to the development of strategiestowards eliminating or reducing the causes of forest fires.
The above-mentioned regulation was complemented in 1994 byRegulation 804 (Council Regulation, 1994), which aimed at supportingthe establishment of forest fire information systems in the countries.It laid down the conditions underwhich theMember Stateswould qual-ify to receive financial support in relation to article 5 (2) of Regulation2158/92, that is, the set up of information systems on forest fires. Toqualify for a Community contribution to the establishment of informa-tion systems, MS had to, at least, comply with the collection of theso-called “core of information on forest fires.” This informationconsisted in the collection of the following parameters for each of theforest fires:
- Date and time of first fire alert- Date and time of first intervention- Date and time of fire extinction- Location of the outbreak (location of the commune and successiveterritorial units to which it belongs (province or department,region, State).
- Total area burnt, broken down into wooded and unwooded land- Presumed cause of the fires (unknown, natural, accidental ornegligence, or deliberate)
Each year, the common core of information had to be provided tothe Commission.
Additional measures supporting forest fire prevention wereestablished in the Rural Development Regulation 1257/1999 (CouncilRegulation, 1999), financed by the European Agricultural Guidance andGuarantee Fund (EAGGF). All the regulations applied the “Subsidiarity”principle, bywhich ultimate competence established in the field of forestfires relied on the MS authorities. However, the mechanisms to requestfunding from the EC under the different regulations and the way inwhich the MS could use this differed largely.
Coordination for the implementation of Reg. 2158/92 relied on theCommission. Within this regulation, MS applied for the establishment
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of concrete measures related to their forest fire prevention plans,which resulted in concrete outputs (e.g. common core of informationon forest fires) to be provided to the Commission. On the contrary,the application of funds under RDR 1257/1999 was in the generalcontext of rural development programs in the MS and their regions.Funds were provided by the EC for the implementation of RDRplans, which were defined according to the needs of the MS or regionswhere these were implemented. It was thus not guaranteed that anyof the funds received under RDR 1257/1999 would ultimately bededicated to forest fire prevention. No coordination of the eventualmeasures implemented by the MS existed at the Commission level.The top-down implementation of Reg. 2158/92 favored the coordina-tion of European-wide activities, while the bottom-up approach ofReg. 1257/99 prevented a coordinated approach to forest fire preven-tion at EU level.
Regulation 2158/92 was extended through a series of amend-ments (Commission Regulation, 1999 and 2002) up to CommissionRegulation, 2003. During this period it was essential that in 2001,under request of the European Parliament, the article of the EuropeanTreaty on which the Regulation was based changed from Article 43(related to the Common Agricultural Policy) to article 130S (later onArticle 175S) of the EC Treaty (EC Treaty, 1992) regarding Europeanenvironmental policy.
As the basis of the fire-related regulations was the environmentalpolicy which was competence of the Directorate General Environment(DG ENV), in January 2002, the responsibility of the regulations re-garding forest fire protection against fires was transferred from theDirectorate General Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI)to DG ENV. Activities related to forest fire information systems andawareness raising campaigns would remain under a new regulationthat would substitute the previous one, which would be referred to as“Forest Focus.” Regulation (EC) No 2152 concerning monitoring of for-ests and environmental interactions in the Community (Forest Focus)was established in 2003. This regulation merged previous regulationson forest protection against fires (2158/92) and atmospheric pollution(2582/86). In relation to forest fires, Forest Focus retained activities tobe implemented by MS in relation to forest fire information systems,awareness raising campaigns, as well as some fire prevention activities.Measures under this scheme should complement those measureswhich were undertaken in the context of the Community ActionProgram in the field of Civil Protection (Council Decision, 1999), theRural Development Regulation (Council Regulation, 1999) or theEuropean Forest Information and Communication System (EFICS)Regulation (Council Regulation, 1989b).
Contrary to previous regulations on forest fire prevention, being thenew Forest Focus regulation under the competence of the EuropeanCouncil and the European Parliament, any modification of the regula-tion, or its extension would need to be agreed in a co-decision process.
The Forest Focus Regulation expired at the end of 2006 after fouryears of its establishment. It was replaced and repealed by theRegulation No 614/2007 concerning the Financial Instrument for theEnvironment (LIFE+) (Commission Regulation, 2007). Currently, thisregulation, next to the regulation on support for rural development bythe European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD)(Council Regulation, 2005), is the main instrument supporting the MSin setting up measures aimed at improving forest fire prevention.
3. First steps in the development of EFFIS
In the late 1990s information and communication technologieshad already reached a good level of maturity, especially those relatedto remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS). Withinthe European Commission Joint Research Centre, activities related tothe monitoring of forest fires through these new technologies wereinitiated as part of the so-called Natural Hazards Project, which wasestablished in 1997; although still in a research phase, these activities
were supported by DG ENV and DG AGRI, which had a direct link withthe operational forest fires and civil protection services in the MemberStates.
The objective of fire research activities was twofold, obtainingEuropean wide information on forest fires, and setting up moderninformation systems that were able to handle large amounts of dataand make these available to the final users through Internet webapplications (San Miguel-Ayanz et al., 1998).
The first meeting of the EC Services with the EU MS for the discus-sion on the establishment of a European system for forest fire moni-toring took place at the end of 1998. These first activities wereinitiated in the field of Civil Protection under the support of the CivilProtection Mechanism (Council Decision, 1999). In 1998, countrieswere already exchanging information on forest fire risk during the firecampaign. Fire risk maps were sent by fax to the Civil Protection EUservices in Brussels, which re-distributed themaps to all the participantcountries. However, the fire risk maps provided by the countries werecomputed with different methods and were not comparable. Fig. 2shows examples of the maps that were exchanged by EuropeanMediterranean countries in 1998. Initial developments in EFFIS weretowards the establishment of a forest fire danger information systemin Europe, so that harmonized information on fire risk would arrivetimely to all the services in the EU and the countries. It was foreseenthat fire risk could be computed centrally for all Europe and providedin real time to all the Member States through Internet, via email orweb information services.
Although cooperation with the Countries was established in theform of periodic meetings before and after the fire campaigns, a formalset-up of this collaboration was not in place. Countries were informedon the developments of the Forest Fire Risk Forecasting System(EFFRFS) and the European Forest Fire Damage Assessment System(EFFDAS) through the periodic meetings with the Civil Protectionnational representatives.
The development of EFFIS followed a cycle. The countries tested newEFFISmodules developed by JRC; the feedback provided by the countrieswas used to refine and improve the modules, and finally, adjustmentsrequested/proposed by the countries were implemented. By the year2000 the first modules of EFFIS were in place providing operationallyinformation on forest fires; those were the European Forest Fire RiskAssessment System and the European Forest Fire Damage AssessmentSystem. EFFIS was operated for the first time in this year.
Currently, EFFIS provides all the base information on forest firesthat supports EU and other European initiatives related to forest mon-itoring such as the Ministerial Conference for the Protection of Forestsin Europe (Kohl et al. 2007) and the period reporting of the EuropeanEnvironment Agency (San-Miguel-Ayanz et al. 2008a, 2008b).
4. The Forest Focus regulation — establishment of EFFIS
As mentioned above, in 2001, under request of the EuropeanParliament, the article of the European Treaty on which the Regulation2158/92was based changed to article 130S (later on Article 175S) of theTreaty regarding European environmental policy, instead of article 43related to the Common Agricultural Policy. This change was based onthe decision of the European Court of Justice (Judgment of the Court,1999). As the basis of the basis of the regulation was the environmentalpolicy, which was competence of DG ENV, in January 2002, the respon-sibility of the regulations regarding forest fire protection against fireswas transferred DG ENV.
Regulation 2158/92 expired in 2002 and was replaced in 2003 byRegulation 2152/2003 on forest monitoring and environmentalinteractions, referred to as “Forest Focus.” Although the main es-sence of the previous regulations was maintained under ForestFocus, some of the components were not fully maintained. This wasthe case of the “forest fire protection plans”, which were requestedunder Reg. 2158/92 and were not considered under Forest Focus,
Fig. 2. Fire risk maps exchanged by European Mediterranean countries in 1998.
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and the classification of territories in the Member States according toforest fire risk into high, medium, or low.
Being EFFIS already part of forest fire activities developed jointly byDG ENV and the JRC since 1998, the system was fully considered underthe new “Forest Focus” Regulation established in 2003. However, the of-ficial mention of the system in a European regulation did not take placeuntil the implementation Regulation of Forest Focus, i.e. CommissionRegulation 1737/2006 (Commission Regulation, 2006) came in place.This regulation stated that monitoring of forest fires should be contin-ued on the basis of the European Forest Fire Information System builton the basis of previous regulations (Council Regulation, 1992 and1994) and the work of the Joint Research Centre under the EuropeanForest Fire Risk Forecasting System (EFFRFS) and the European ForestFire Damage Assessment System (EFFDAS). It further stated that thefollowing data had to be recorded in EFFIS:
- According to the Reg. 1737/2006, the following data were to berecorded in EFFIS:
- the common core data submitted in accordance with Article 9 ofthe same regulation;
- additional data for forest fires affecting areas of at least 50 HA sub-mitted in accordance with Article 10 of the same regulation;
- information provided by the Joint Research Centre on forecast offire risk within the framework of the European Forest Fire RiskForecasting System (EFFRFS) and on mapping and evaluation ofdamages caused by fire which affect an area of at least 50 hectareswithin the framework of the European Forest Fire Damage Assess-ment System (EFFDAS).
However, although EFFIS was formally established in the contextof Forest Focus, its continuity was not guaranteed once Forest Focusexpired at the end of 2006. The legal basis for the continuation ofthe activities in EFFIS disappeared, as the system was not referred toin either the LIFE+ (EC Reg. 614/2007) or the Rural DevelopmentRegulation (EC Reg. 1698/2005).
Within the context of the Forest Focus regulation, EFFIS was furtherdeveloped to include newmodules on rapid damage assessment, forest
fire emissions, post-fire potential soil erosion, and the monitoring ofvegetation regeneration in burnt areas. This work has continued in therecent years, inwhich also a dedicated tool supporting the coordinationcivil protection activities for fire fighting at EU level was developed. Thework on EFFIS, the relevance of the system, and the need to continue itsdevelopment has been repeatedly acknowledged by the EuropeanParliament (European Parliament, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c, 2008a,2009)and the European Commission (Commission Communication, 2008a,2008b, 2008c, 2009b, 2010).
Since the establishment of the Forest Focus regulation, DG ENVfinances the operation of EFFIS, while the JRC funds the research activi-ties for the improvement and further development of the system. BothDG ENV and JRC jointly coordinate EFFIS. The contact with the expertsof the relevant forest fire and civil protection services in the countriesis established and maintained through the Expert Group on Forest Fires(EGFF), which constitutes a registered group under the EC SecretariatGeneral of the European Commission. In addition to DG ENV and JRC,other Commission services dealing with forest fires are invited to themeetings of the EGFF; these include, among others, ECHO (EC Humani-tarian Office) dealing with prevention and response to disasters in thecontext of civil protection, DG REGIO (Regional Development) dealingwith the implementation of the EU Solidarity Fund (Council Regulation,2002), and DG AGRI (Agriculture and Regional Development) in chargeof the Rural Development Regulation.
5. Contribution of EFFIS to the current EU policies
The development of EFFIS was a result of common interests of theEuropean Union and its MS. Its development was based on existingEU Regulations in the 1990s that supported the development of infor-mation systems in the countries, although the system was not em-bedded in any of those regulations. The work on the developmentof a European fire information system started in 1998 and continueduntil EFFIS was officially established in the context of the Forest Focusregulation in 2003. Since the system started operating in the year2000, it has provided official information on forest fires at the
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European level in support of the EU and MS fire related services. Thenext paragraphs described EU policies to whish EFFIS is providingsupport in either their development or implementation phases.
Nowadays, the only EU framework on which specific forestry re-lated actions can be based is the European Forestry Strategy whichwas established in 1999 (Council Resolution, 1998). The EuropeanForestry Strategy fixes general guidelines under which commonactions related to forestry, in general, can be established. However,this strategy lacks concrete steps and actions that should be takento achieve the overall goals. In order to help implement the maingoals of the European Union Forestry Strategy, a EU Forest ActionPlan was established in 2006 (Commission Communication, 2006;Council Conclusions 2006). The overall objective of the EU ForestAction Plan (FAP) is to support and enhance sustainable forest man-agement and the multifunctional role of forest.
The FAP is structured in the form of 18 “Key Actions (KA)” to beimplemented in the period 2007 to 2011 by the Commission and theMember States through proposed voluntary measures. Specifically,Key Action 9, is focused on “Enhancing the protection of EU Forests.”This KA states that the Commission will work towards the furtherdevelopment of the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).As in the past, this KA is developed by the joint collaboration of theCommission with the Member States. DG ENV provides funding forthe EFFIS operational activities, while the JRC deals with the coordina-tion of research activities and the further development of the system.
Recently, the restructuring of activities within the EuropeanCommission has assigned responsibilities for overall activities onthe prevention and response to disasters, including forest fires,under Civil Protection (Council Decision, 2007). Several resolutionsof the European Parliament (European Parliament, 2006a, 2006b,2006c, 2009) called upon the Commission to enhance activities relat-ed to forest fire prevention in order to reduce the damages caused bythese in Europe. The Commission reacted by launching several activ-ities related to reinforcing the Union's Disaster Response Capacity(Commission Communication, 2010, European Parliament, 2008b;Council Conclusions, 2008) supporting disaster risk reduction(Commission Communication, 2009a) and prevention natural andman-made disasters (Commission Communication 2009b). All theabove‐mentioned Communications refer to EFFIS as the Europeansystem providing information on forest fires and build on the activi-ties of EFFIS for minimizing the negative effects of forest fires andimprove forest fire fighting among European countries.
These Communications highlight the activities on the Commissionand ask Member States to use instruments that are already availableat the Community level, such as the EU Solidarity Fund and theRural Development Regulation. The EU Solidarity Fund enables theprovision of financial resources by the EU to the Member States incase of major disasters upon request by the affected Member State.EFFIS supports the implementation of the EU Solidarity Fund, as itprovides information on the areas affected by forest fires and theplausible estimate of forest fire damages. The EU Solidarity Fund hasbeen applied in case of major fire events (e.g. Portugal and Spain2003, Greece, 2007).
Fires are the result of climatic conditions that are dealt with in thecontext of climate change adaptation (Commission Communication,2009c; Council Conclusions 2009). Forest fires have a marked impacton the European environment. Their effects are important in relationfor policies such as those dealing with biodiversity conservation andthe protection of natural areas. In this context, EFFIS supports theanalysis of effects on forest fires on forest biodiversity (CommissionCommunication, 2008b) and their impact in Natura2000 protectedsites (Council Directive, 1992).
Although EFFIS is an independent system, it makes part of theEuropean Forest Data Centre (EFDAC). The establishment of EFDACaddresses Key Action 8 of the Forest Action Plan for the implementa-tion of the EU Forestry Strategy, which called for the establishment of
a European Forest Data Centre by the Joint Research Centre of theCommission. The roles of EFDAC and EFFIS are acknowledged andsupported by recent Green Paper of the Commission on Forest Informa-tion in the EU (Commission Green Paper, 2010). Furthermore, theirimportant contributions have been recently endorsed by the CouncilConclusions of 2010 on “prevention of forest fires with the EU”(Council Conclusions, 2010a) and “preparing forests for climate change:Forest protection and information in the EU” (Council Conclusions,2010b).
The establishment of harmonized information systems in the EUsuch as EFDAC and EFFIS supports the implementation of the EuropeanDirective INSPIRE on establishing an Infrastructure for SpatialInformation in the European Community (European CommissionDirective, 2007). It reinforces the Commission initiatives towardsthe establishment of a Shared Environmental Information System(SEIS) (Commission Communication, 2008c) and contributes to theobjective of previous regulations on forestry information systemssuch as EFICS (Council Regulation, 1989b; Tilsner et al. 2008).
6. Current status and future of EFFIS
Since its first conception as a system providing fire risk forecast andfire danger assessment, the EFFIS system has evolved to become a firemonitoring system that comprises all the phases of forest fires, fromthe pre-fire assessments to the post-fire estimation of damages andthe analysis of vegetation recovery (San-Miguel-Ayanz, 2007). Animage of the EFFIS web system is provided in Figure xx. The EuropeanCommission and the EFFIS network countries publish yearly reportson the impact of forest fires in the European region (e.g. Forest Firesin Europe Report 2009 — European Commission, 2010).
EFFIS has become an essential tool for the monitoring of forest firesin Europe and neighbor areas such as those in the Balkans in 2007 or inRussia in 2010. It provides information on forest fires that is used in allEuropean and global reporting initiatives on forest fires (e.g. EEA,MCPFE, FAO). It is fully supported by the Member States, the Councilof the EU and Parliament, as noted in recent resolutions and decisionsfrom these bodies, and by the European Commission. Currently, DGENV finances the operation of the system, although full support isreceived from theMonitoring and Information Centre of Civil Protectionof the European Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO) to which thesystemprovides essential information supporting international collabo-ration on forest fire fighting in Europe. Fig. 3 presents an image of theweb application of EFFIS at http://effis.jrc.ec.europa.eu.
EFFIS is seen as a precursor of future systems thatmay be developedin the context of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security(GMES) initiatives of the Commission (Commission Regulation, 2010;Commission Communication, 2009d). In the future, GMES may beused for financing the operational modules of EFFIS and the develop-ment of new complementary services supporting EFFIS.
Although EFFIS is embedded in the context of several EU Policiesand it is supported by European Institutions such as the EuropeanCouncil, the European Parliament and the European Commission, itstill lacks a legal basis for its continued operation. New initiativesof the European Commission in the context of forest protection andinformation systems may serve as the legal basis for the future ofEFFIS.
7. Conclusions and discussion
The role of EFFIS in providing policy relevant information on forestfires has been demonstrated since its first operation in 2000. Its devel-opment contributes to EU policies on harmonization of spatial informa-tion (i.e. INSPIRE), development of environmental information systemsin the EU (i.e. SEIS) and initiatives on global monitoring for environ-ment (i.e. GMES). Given the current requirements for forest protectionand biodiversity conservation (Commission Communication, 2008b),
Fig. 3. EFFIS web information system at http://effis.jrc.ec.europa.eu.
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the information provided by the system is essential. Moreover, EFFIShelps in fulfilling the requirements of information on forest firesexpressed in recent Communications of the European Commission(Commission Communication, 2009a, 2009b, 2010). However, difficul-ties for establishing forest monitoring and forest protection initiativesat the European level have prevented the official establishment of thesystem in the context of EU legislation.
Despite the lack of a legal basis for EFFIS, the system is operatedthrough the collaboration of the services involved in forest fires,both at the level of the EU Institutions and at country level. After12 years of collaboration between the EC and the Member States inthe field of forest fires, EFFIS is heavily supported. Countries providedata that are fed into the European Forest Fire Database, while theEC Services maintain the operation of the system. The system there-fore compiles harmonized information on forest fires provided bythe countries, enhancing the cooperation between the MS and theimplementation of best practices in forest fire prevention and firefighting in Europe. Additionally, the system provides unique harmo-nized information that is not available in the Member States such asthe perimeters of burnt areas and fire danger forecast up to 6 daysahead. This information supports that which is already available inthe national systems and permits international cooperation in forestfire fighting.
There is an increased worry about the continuation of a systemthat is currently operated by JRC and does not have steady legalbasis that guarantees either its operation or its further development.Given the support to EFFIS by the EU Institutions and the relevant ser-vices in the Member States, the continuation of EFFIS must beguaranteed. However, current policies do not include either the oper-ation of EFFIS or the financing of its further development. The recentGreen Paper launched by the ECmay serve in the future for the officialestablishment of EFFIS in forthcoming EU policies for forest protec-tion and information in the EU.
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