An INSPIRE-compliant open-source GIS for fire-fighting management

Every year, there are almost 50,000 forest fires in Europe (127/day), which have burned an area equal to more than 450,000 ha. An effective management of forest fires is therefore fundamental in order to reduce the number of the fires and, especially, the related burned areas, preserving the environment and saving human lives. However, some problems still exist in the structure of information and in the harmonization of data and fire management procedures among different European countries. Pursuing the same interoperability aims, the European Union has invested in the development of the INSPIRE Directive (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) to support environmental policies. Furthermore, the EU (European Union) is currently working on developing ad hoc infrastructures for the safe management of forests and fires. Moving from this premises and following an analysis of the state of the art of information systems for forest fire-fighting, in the light of the end-user requirements, the paper presents the INSPIRE—compliant design of a geographical information system, implemented using open-source platforms.