Experience in the province of Girona on fire prevention in the Wildland Urban Interface

Session: Fire pevention and preparedness

Presenter: Maria Pipió Adroher (Environmental department, Diputació de Girona)

Contact email: mpipio@ddgi.cat

The Provincial Council of Girona is a local public administration endowed with certain powers for the government and administration of the province of Girona. Provides direct services to citizens and technical, economic and technological support to all the 221 municipalities in the province. In addition, it coordinates municipal services of supra-municipal nature.

Link: www.ddgi.cat

ABSTRACT: One of the main aims and competences of the Provincial Council of Girona is to advise municipalities and offer them assistance in forest fires prevention.
Law 5/2003, of April 22, on preventive measures for forest fires in urban areas, among others, defines the following obligations:

• Draft and approve a boundary plan for areas comprised by this Law.
• Ensure the existence of a  in the population centers, urbanizations, facilities and isolated buildings.
• Maintain interior plots and green areas under the same conditions as the protective perimeter stripes.

The Provincial Council of Girona offers the City Councils technical services as well as legal and technical advice in order to comply with the rules and regulations of fire prevention in inhabited areas. The main challenges that we encounter at the time of implementing this assistance programme in the field of forest fire prevention can be divided into three parts:

Technical difficulties: protective strips must be at least 25 meters by Law, but the real dimensioning of these perimeters should be calculated to be effective for each case.

Legal and administrative difficulties: many Girona´s municipalities have few administrative resources and the processing of these files are complex and comprise hundreds of owners.

Communication and information challenges: a good communication plan that puts an emphasis to the risk exposure, self-protection and individual responsibility is needed to reach the affected population.