Integrated Fire Management Webinar Series 1 – Global level

Wildfires are no longer confined to the domain of operational response and technical suppression. They have become a multidimensional governance challenge closely linked to climate change, land-use dynamics, socio-economic vulnerabilities, disaster risk reduction and sustainable forest management.

Against this background, the FAO is launching the integrated fire management (IFM) webinar series, designed as a strategic capacity development and policy dialogue platform that bridges FAO’s global normative framework with regional and national implementation. The series provides a progressive learning pathway from global principles to regional practice and national experience, creating a shared understanding among policymakers, technical experts and practitioners across the Europe and Central Asia region.

Within this series, webinar 1 plays a foundational role. It constitutes the conceptual and normative entry point of the entire programme and establishes the common reference framework upon which all subsequent webinars are built.

The webinar also introduces several cross-cutting priorities that will be further developed throughout the series:

• the need for gender-responsive and socially inclusive IFM, recognizing that fire risk, impacts, roles and capacities differ across social groups and must be systematically addressed to achieve equitable and sustainable outcomes.
• the importance of digitalization and data management, including remote sensing, geospatial data, artificial intelligence, early warning systems and interoperable information platforms, as enablers of evidence-based decision-making and coordination;
• the strategic role of training and capacity development centres in operationalizing IFM’s global normative framework as institutional actors that translate global normative guidance into national and regional practice and help close the policy–practice gap;
  

Webinar languages: English, Russian and Turkish

About integrated fire management

Grounded in FAO’s Integrated Fire Management Voluntary Guidelines: Principles and Strategic Actions (Second Edition, 2024), Webinar 1 introduces integrated fire management as FAO’s global normative approach to fire management and frames how this approach can be understood, interpreted and progressively applied within regional and national contexts.

IFM positions fire management as an integral component of climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and sustainable forest management, and emphasizes that effective action depends on coherent policies, strong institutions, inclusive governance arrangements and continuous institutional learning.

Rather than aiming to eliminate fire entirely, IFM seeks to reduce risk, limit adverse impacts and strengthen the resilience of ecosystems and societies, recognizing both the ecological role of fire in certain landscapes and the need for context-specific management solutions.

Register