Wildfires: satellites, databases and artificial intelligence to identify areas at risk

The aim is to move beyond the emergency response – driven by the need to extinguish the flames – and focus on prevention. All this forms part of an approach that combines environmental protection with the monitoring, management and safeguarding of wooded areas. This new approach is being championed by PEFC Italia, the organisation promoting the sustainable management of forest resources, together with the CNR and SISEF, the Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology.

The starting point is the wildfires that have affected Spain, France, Greece and even Italia in recent weeks. Situations which, according to PEFC representatives, ‘confirm Europe’s growing exposure to events that are increasingly intense, widespread and difficult to control’. These are no longer seasonal emergencies but ‘a structural risk, exacerbated by climate change, which is bringing increasingly hot and dry weather conditions, prolonged droughts and extreme weather events that also affect the accumulation of combustible plant material’.

The figures are significant. According to data from the Effis (European Forest Fire Information System), 1,407 fires have already been recorded across the European Union from the start of the year to 29 July, covering a total area of 434,976 hectares. To date, the area burnt is already more than double the 2006–2025 average and is 25 per cent higher than in 2025, the worst year on record. Furthermore, the system is flagging conditions of extreme danger in south-western France, northern Spain and Portugal, as well as in many parts of Italy, confirming the continent’s growing vulnerability to events of exceptional intensity.

In Italia, from the start of the year to 28 July, the satellite detected just over 1,070 major forest fires spread across the country. “The total area affected by the fires,” ISPRA points out, “amounts to approximately 741 square kilometres, an area comparable to that of the entire province of Lodi. Almost 14 per cent of the total burnt area was covered by forest ecosystems, including 37 square kilometres of evergreen broadleaf woodland (holm oak forests and Mediterranean scrub) and 24 square kilometres of coniferous woodland (pine and fir forests)’. In addition, there were 119 square kilometres of agricultural land (16 per cent of the total area burnt) and 451 square kilometres of permanent grassland (61 per cent of the total area burnt).

“It is paradoxical that in Italia, a country with around 12 million hectares of woodland, we only realise we are a forested nation when fires break out,” comments Marco Bussone, president of PEFC Italia, AIEL and UNCM. We need resources, staff and technology to deal with emergencies, but the real challenge comes much earlier: planning, managing and certifying. Today, only a limited proportion (around 20 per cent) of the national forest heritage is subject to planning and programme implementation, whilst millions of hectares remain outside any structured strategy.” And, as Bussone further emphasises, whilst it is true that not all fires can be prevented, it is possible to stop every spark from turning into a catastrophe. ‘This is why sustainable forest management is not just a slogan but means forests that are understood, monitored, cared for and integrated into local supply chains capable of generating economic activity, safeguarding the environment and fostering community.’