Fire management strategy

The FAO Ministerial Meeting on Forests and the 17th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry, March 2005 (Rome, Italy 2005) called upon FAO, in collaboration with countries and other international partners, including the UNISDR, to develop a strategy to enhance international cooperation in fire management, that advanced knowledge, increased access to information and resources and explored new approaches for cooperation at all levels. They also requested preparation of voluntary guidelines on the prevention, suppression and recovery from forest fire. The need for such tools to assist in international cooperation had also been highlighted at the 3rd International Wildland Fire Conference and the International Wildland Fire Summit (Sydney, Australia 2003) because of the increasing incidence and severity of impacts of major fires globally.

An international expert consultation in wildland fires (Madrid, May 2006) agreed that the non-legally binding Strategy to Enhance International Cooperation in Fire Management includes the overarching framework and four components: i) Fire Management Voluntary Guidelines; ii) Implementation Partnership; iii) Global Assessment of Fire Management; and iv) Review of International Cooperation in Fire Management.

These tools have been tailored primarily for land-use policy makers, planners and managers in fire management, including the Governments, the private sector and non-governmental organizations to assist in the formulation of policy, legal, regulatory and other enabling conditions and strategic actions for more holistic approaches to fire management. Their scope includes the positive and negative social, cultural, environmental and economic impacts of natural and planned fires in forests, woodlands, rangelands, grasslands, agricultural and rural/-urban landscapes. The fire management scope includes early warning, prevention, preparedness (international, national, sub-national and community), safe and effective initial attack on incidences of fire and landscape restoration following fire.

In addition to these tools,  FAO has developed legal guidelines for fire management and reprinted a Wildland Fire Management handbook for trainers to complement the fire management strategy publications, originally developed by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.