International forest firefighting concepts based on aerial support strategies

Dramatic increases in forest fires in Europe as well as worldwide can be observed. Therefore, technical developments to support large scale forest firefighting strategies and management solutions are an international issue in the quest to protect human lives and resources as well as to reduce the negative environmental impact. This article describes an airborne based concept to enable an efficient management of airborne operation forces (helicopters, planes) as well as ground forces (vehicles, mobile teams, etc.) in frame of a forest fire / wildfire event situation. The concept is based on a multi sensor airborne platform and includes the development of a multi-level management system. The aim is to support tasks and time-critical decision processes in forest firefighting situations by near real-time processing chains and end user oriented management solutions. Further, a simulation based decision support and impact evaluation module is developed in frame of the ongoing national funded KIRAS 1 research project 3F-MS. In frame of an international expert workshop with 30 participants from 12 nations the concept was discussed as well as critically questioned and essential knowledge was gained for the further development steps.