Preventing Forest Fires Through Remote Sensing: Achievements of the Prevention and Recovery of Forest Fires Emergency in the Mediterranean Area Project

The three-year Space-Based Information Support for the Prevention and Recovery of Forest Fires Emergency in the Mediterranean Area (PREFER) project was devoted to creating a satellite-based service infrastructure capable of providing up-to-date information to support the prepared¬ness, prevention, recovery, and reconstruction phases of the forest fires emergency cycle in the European Mediterranean region. The project, an initiative of the 7th Framework Pro¬gramme for Research and Technological Development, was successfully completed at the end of 2015. However, the project’s products were also made available to engaged us¬ers for the 2016 summer season. The present article presents the initiative’s achievements, emphasizing the most innovative information products de¬veloped in PREFER’s framework. For these products, the methodology and validation results are introduced and dis¬cussed. The PREFER project was largely associated with the European Copernicus program (http://www.copernicus.eu/), the goal of which is to develop operational information services on a global scale, using both space- and ground-based monitoring systems, in support of environmental and security policy needs.