On the 15th of June, members of LEMONTREE working on wildfire attended a meeting at the Technical University of Crete, hosted by the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society on the topic Fire in the Mediterranean. Having been lucky enough to be invited to speak, we travelled to meet delegates researchers from parallel groups, the National Observatory of Athens and local stakeholders.

The meeting consisted of 13 presentations and much discussion, with perspectives brought from wildfire-fighters, meteorologists, ecologists and even a lawyer. Wildfire is a complex subject, tightly linked with many societal and environmental factors, and the broad array of perspectives brought to the meeting led to many fruitful and diverse conversations between attendees.

I gave a presentation on modelling the probability of fires starting and spreading to at least a tenth of a hectare in size.

I was able to present some promising insights into the seasonal cycle of wildfire genesis in different environments and came away with some new ideas for improving the model, as well as some contacts for future collaboration and application of the research.

 

 

Here I am presenting my research on a probabilistic model for early wildfire genesis.

 

Following the meeting our hosts took us to Samaria Gorge, a popular hiking destination and interesting case-study in wildfire risk and risk-management.

 

We were introduced to the issues surrounding the management of the park by the park manager, delegates from the Athens Observatory forecasting fire weather in the park and the regional fire chief. It was a real highlight to be able to have the conversations with people directly involved in assessing and managing the wildfire hazard.

 

 

 

Delegates in conversation with the park manager and fire fighters at Samaria Gorge

 

Some of the delegates to the Wildfire in the Mediterranean meeting.

Front row: Kostas Lagouvardo (NOA), Vassiliki Kotroni (NOA), Matt Kasoar, Sandy Harrison. Apostoulous Voulgaraki, Colin Prentice.

Second row: Anastasios Rovithakis, Adriana Ford, Haleema Misal, Katie Blackford, Theodore Keeping.

Back row: Manolis Grillakis

 

 

 

 

Our thanks go to the Technical University of Crete, the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society, staff from National Park Of Samaria, National Observatory of Athens and the Samaria Gorge local fire personnel.

Photos courtesy of Theo Keeping and the meeting delegates.