From 12 to 22 August 2024, Kadir Alperen Coskuner of Karadeniz Technical University carried out a Short-Term Scientific Mission (STSM) at the National Wildfire Decision Support Cell of Portugal’s National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC), together with the School of Agriculture of the University of Lisbon. The aim was to understand how wildfire suppression decisions are made in Portugal and compare them with approaches in Türkiye.
Learning the tools
The first days were spent with ANEPC’s FM system, a web-based operational wildfire decision support tool, to understand the IT solutions behind decision-making in Portugal and the types of data used for real-time fire analysis.
Analysing two fires
Using data from the FM system and satellite imagery, two fires, Soutelo and Vimioso, were analysed for fire progression. Fire behaviour parameters were calculated in ArcGIS: rate of spread (m/h), fuel consumption (kg/m²) and fireline intensity (kW/m). Detailed reports were prepared for both, covering fire behaviour, environmental drivers, impacts and lessons learned.
Comparing decision-making
Kadir took part in ANEPC’s weekly briefings, reviewed documents on suppression and decision-making, and discussed fires with ANEPC staff at various levels, drawing comparisons with current practice in Türkiye. He also joined the online meeting of the EU Emergency Response Coordination Centre, gaining insight into European fire preparedness and incidents ongoing at the time.
Open data
The fire reconstructions from this mission have been published as an open dataset on Zenodo.
Outputs
About the grant
| Grantee | Kadir Alperen Coskuner |
| Home institution | Karadeniz Technical University, Türkiye |
| Host | National Wildfire Decision Support Cell (ANEPC), with the School of Agriculture (ISA), University of Lisbon, Portugal |
| Dates | 12–22 August 2024 |
| Grant type | Short-Term Scientific Mission |
This grant was funded by COST Action CA22164 – European Network on Extreme Fire Behaviour (NERO), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).
