Project GUARDIAN starts fire prevention training sessions for citizens

The environmental engineering consultancy Medi XXI is responsible for running the workshops

Project GUARDIAN has started one of the initiatives included in the strategies for improving the resilience of the wildland-urban interface of Turia Natural Park, fire prevention training for citizens residing in the area.

Thus, over the coming weeks, children, neighbours from the residential areas bordering Turia Natural Park and other collectives from the towns of Riba-roja and Paterna will take part in these sessions given by Medi XXI, the company that is also responsible for the installation of fire defence infrastructures.

The first of these workshops was conducted with the rest of the GUARDIAN partners, including Hidraqua, Riba-roja and Paterna Town Halls, the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia University and Cetaqua.

The next sessions are linked to seminars on awareness and education aimed at different audiences. Thus, the seminar for schoolchildren has two workshops, one linked to climate change, including the causes and effects of this problem, and a second workshop involving a simulation of how fire affects homes depending on whether or not appropriate measures to increase fire resilience in nearby wooded areas have been taken. These workshops are already under way for schoolchildren aged 6 to 11, as well for a group of disabled people, adapting the content to each of these collectives. To date, around 100 schoolchildren have taken part in these sessions.

Seminars are also being arranged for the residents of the Masía de Traver residential estate (Riba-roja). These consist of a talk-presentation about forest fire prevention and how project Guardian can raise their defensive possibilities. After the talk, they visit a nearby spot on the banks of the Turia, an action zone for project GUARDIAN, where there is a demonstration of the SIDEINFO cannons (in their portable version or as a model) that will be installed as part of the project. These initial workshops will continue over the course of the summer with those potentially affected in the area.

The next step in terms of training will begin during the months of October and November of this year and will focus on the analysis of the perception of the risk that forest fires represent (especially for residents of the area’s wildland-urban interface), on the factors involved in the appearance and propagation of fire, risk levels and home defence. Furthermore, the first training in pyrogardening, a new concept that consists of a series of gardening techniques based on the creation of garden-spaces with vegetation that is more fire resistant, and which can act as a barrier against the advance of the fire, will be given.

The seminars will be open to all citizens and the information from the same will be communicated through the social networks of the project and of the partners that form part of the same.