Seed project: Human and technology in collaboration – weather stations strengthening local forest fire preparedness
The project aims to strengthen local community preparedness for forest fires by using weather stations to provide more accurate, localized forest fire risk forecasts. Through collaboration between researchers and societal actors, improved decision support is being developed for fire and rescue services and the forestry sector.
Project information
Project manager
Bengt Nilsson
Other project members
Anders Svensson, Achim Grelle, Peter Lerman, Daniel Nilsson, Frida Björcman
Participating organizations
Bolmsö/Tannåker Räddningsvärn Räddningstjänsten Ljungby
Financier
Linnaeus University
Timetable
1 August 2024 – 31 December 2024
Subject
Forestry and wood technology (Department of Forestry and Wood Technology, Faculty of Technology) and Caring Science (Department of Health and Caring Sciences, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences)
Knowledge Environment
Linnaeus Knowledge Environment: Green Sustainable Development
More about the project
In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that society is facing major climate-related challenges, such as storms, floods, and increasingly severe forest fires. In Sweden, the storm Gudrun in 2005 put crisis preparedness to the test, and during the forest fire summers of 2018 and early 2023, it became even more evident that extreme weather is a growing societal challenge.
From an ecological, economic, and social sustainability perspective, this development suggests that the forestry sector will be expected to both prevent and manage forest fires to a greater extent in the future. Forest fire risk is traditionally assessed using the Fire Weather Index (FWI), which is based on weather forecasts divided into 2.5 x 2.5 km grid cells. However, since weather conditions can vary significantly even within small areas, these assessments can be misleading on a local level.
By placing weather stations locally, forest fire risk can instead be evaluated based on actual conditions on the ground – which is crucial for making informed decisions about, for example, fire bans, forest fire monitoring, and emergency preparedness. In response to this issue, volunteer fire brigades in the municipality of Ljungby have initiated an operational pilot project using weather stations to assess forest fire risk locally and provide better decision support for fire and rescue services.
The project is funded by Länsförsäkring Kronoberg and carried out in collaboration with the Danish weather technology company Cordulus. The stations collect local weather data in real time – including temperature, precipitation, wind, and humidity – enabling a much more accurate calculation of forest fire risk.
Through this seed funding project, researchers from both the Faculty of Technology and the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at Linnaeus University are joining the weather station initiative in Ljungby. The focus is on how new technology, in the form of weather stations, can be combined with local knowledge and community engagement to prevent and manage forest fires.
As part of the project, workshops are organized where researchers and practitioners – such as representatives from fire and rescue services, the insurance and forestry sectors, and local associations – come together to formulate relevant questions and lay the foundation for future research collaborations.
The project is an example of how cooperation between academia and society can contribute to concrete solutions to an escalating societal problem. By strengthening both the technology and the people who use it, the project creates conditions for a more resilient and sustainable society.
The seed project is part of the research in the Linnaeus Knowledge Environment: Green Sustainable Development
What is a seed project?
A seed project is a minor project funded by a knowledge environment or a research group at the university. The aim is to launch and promote excellent research. Depending on the financier, a seed project may be to idenfify new or deepen existing collaborations, preferably cross-disciplinary ones, to explore possible research issues in a feasibility study, to collect empirical material, or to write an application for external funding.