European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) Data

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) set up in 1998 a research group to work specifically on the development and implementation of advanced methods for the evaluation of forest fire danger and mapping of burnt areas at the European scale. Also in 1998, a first meeting of the "Forest Fire Experts Group" of the Member States took place. This group was established by DG ENV and JRC to advice on the development of the foreseen methods for fire assessment.

These activities led to the development of the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) which became operational in 2000.

EFFIS has been continuously expanding, sustained by the research work done at the JRC and supported by other European Commission services (DG ENV, DG ECHO, DG GROW) and the European Countries. Since the year 2015, EFFIS is part of the EU Copernicus Program, under the Emergency Management Service (EMS).  

What EFFIS Data Covers

• Pre-fire conditions: Weather forecasts and danger ratings.
• Active fires: Real-time hotspots and fire perimeters.
• Post-fire damage: Burned area mapping and severity assessment.
• Environmental impacts: Smoke dispersion, emissions, and soil erosion risk. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

How the Data Are Used

• Emergency response: Tracking active blazes in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
• Policy planning: Assessing long-term wildfire risk and climate change impacts.
• Public access: Providing open data via the EFFIS Portal. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

This description was created with the assistance of Generative AI (Gemini).