CALCHAS

The CALCHAS consortium aimed to develop, in accordance with the national and European policies, an intelligent system for an improved and effective preparedness phase in forest fire management. The operational trials of the system will be performed over a pilot period of two years in two case study areas, both Natura 2000: Mount Grammos in northern Greece and the Troodos mountains in Cyprus.

The main goals of CALCHAS project were to:

• Improve knowledge and skills of civil protection professionals/services on effective temporal and spatial planning of resources;
• Improve knowledge and skills of decision makers on drawing evacuation plans for the study areas; and
• Increase the effectiveness and readiness of the fire brigade, civil protection, local community and other interested stakeholders for a forest fire threat.

The CALCHAS project developed an intelligent system that enables improved and effective preparedness in forest fire management. The main innovation and added value of the IFFAS platform lies in the fact that it is a forest fire evolution model and not a probability one. It is capable of estimating the evolution of an uncontrollable forest fire based on real time (not historical) meteorological data for specific areas.