On September 30th, REGILIENCE+ and MIP4Adapt jointly organised the second webinar of the REGILIENCE+ Open Training Session series Contributing to Climate Resilience. Titled “Towards Wildfire Resilient Landscapes”, the session brought together regional and local authorities, researchers, forestry organisations and civil protection experts to discuss how to better prepare for and respond to the growing risks of wildfires. It was moderated by Giorgia Silvestri, Senior Consultant at Ecorys and member of the MIP4Adapt team, and Tomás Calheiros, postdoctoral researcher at FCID, University of Lisbon, representing REGILIENCE+.
The session opened with an introduction to the wildfire challenge, highlighting that more than one million hectares burned across the EU in 2025, a record high, and that wildfire risk is spreading beyond the Mediterranean to countries such as Czechia and Germany. While climate change is a key driver, rural depopulation, fragmented land management and human activity also contribute to the growing risk.
Four experts then shared experiences from Spain and Portugal, presenting different approaches to building wildfire-resilient landscapes. Elena Górriz Mifsud, Senior Researcher at the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia, presented a range of economic and social instruments to promote land management practices that support wildfire resilience, including climate credits and fire-smart product labelling. Domingos Xavier Viegas, Emeritus Professor at the University of Coimbra, introduced the FirEUrisk Open Platform, which provides accessible and interoperable wildfire-related data for different stakeholders. Daniel Estebainha, Municipal Civil Protection Coordinator for the Municipality of Guimarães, explained how the national “Aldeia Segura, Pessoas Seguras” (Safe Village, Safe People) programme was implemented locally through community preparedness and awareness-raising activities. Finally, Fernando Pulido, Professor at the University of Extremadura, shared ten years of work with Spanish local communities and land managers, showing how this participatory approach helped reduce fire impacts through managed and productive fuel-breaks.
An interactive panel discussion followed, bringing together three of the speakers and three additional panellists: Cecilia Fraccaroli, researcher at the European Forest Institute; Duccio Bacci, official of the Forest Fire Prevention Service of the Tuscany Region; and Elias Tzitiris, Forest Fires Actions Coordinator at WWF Greece. The discussion highlighted three main issues. First, people are at the heart of prevention. Better communication with rural communities is essential, including with newcomers who may be unfamiliar with the local territory. Second, responsibilities and funding need to be shared more effectively. This means involving and sharing costs between public and private actors, and directing resources towards towards local communities actively working to prevent wildfires. Third, solutions need to be tailored to local conditions while remaining replicable. Ready-made templates, peer learning and starting small before scaling up can help other European territories put similar approaches into practice.
The main ideas and solutions shared during the session are summarised in a REGILIENCE+ knowledge product, available through the Mission Portal. REGILIENCE+ continues to harvest and share tools and solutions to help make the Mission Portal a useful reference point for regions and local communities looking to strengthen their climate resilience and advance their adaptation efforts. In this context, collaboration between REGILIENCE+ and MIP4Adapt will continue to promote the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change and the resources and support it offers.