On 3 December, IPA FF experts held a technical meeting in Belgrade, hosted by the Ministry of Interior (Sector for Emergency Management, SEM), for the initial phase of the assessment of forest fire risk management capabilities in Serbia.Different departments of SEM participated at the meeting, Department for Legal Affairs and International Cooperation, Department for Fire and Rescue Units and Civil Protection, Department for Risk Management. Beyond SEM, the meeting engaged a broad range of stakeholders including representatives from user/owners of forests (i.e. State Enterprises „Srbijašume“ and „Vojvodinašume“), Department for Risk Management of Faculty of Security Studies (University of Belgrade), Scientific Professional Society for Disaster Risk Management (NSD-URVS), Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management.
The aim of this participatory meeting was to better depict the institutional and legal framework fitting the adoption of fire risk mapping for prevention and response. The meeting offered the occasion to exchange experiences on methodologies for forest fire risk assessment at national and local level. The meeting showed there is large necessity of collaboration across departments and sectors in order to facilitate the adoption of forest fire risk assessment procedures and tools in Serbia.
It also helped to identify critical issues and challenges for improving the efficiency of forest fire risk mapping in Serbia. It emerged large interest from all institutions to improve their capacities towards the adoption of fire risk mapping and the benefit that this can generate for the society.The meeting is part of the IPAFF project which aims to improve floods and forest fires risk management capacities in the Balkans (Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Turkey.
The Serbian partners and the IPAFF project partners will meet again in the coming months to advance technical guidelines for forest fire risk management at different governmental levels.Technical meeting for the assessments of risk mapping capabilities for forest fires, Belgrade: 3 December, SEM Mol RS.
