Fire in Society Day – a Pyrogeography Symposium. Co-organised by the Wageningen Disaster Network (WiDeN) and Wageningen Fire Hub.
Time: Tuesday 16 January 2024, 11.40-15.30, with drinks reception to follow
Location: Orion, Wageningen campus, 3031-3032 Orion (hybrid session), free attendance, lunch and drinks included
Keynote speaker: Prof. George Boustras, European University, Cyprus
Fires tend to be treated as a hazard to be suppressed. However, fires have social and environmental utility and can be instrumentalized for better or for worse. Complementing technology, we should look at culture and nature-based ways of managing fire, and understand its political context and range of causes in environment and society to arrive at a truly integrated form of fire management. How might we manage fire differently? What does fire disaster have to do with decisions over urban development and nature conservation? Can greater diversity help to mitigate fire risk?
On this Fire in Society Day, we will have a chance to hear from and exchange ideas with speakers straddling research, policy and practice about the sociocultural and political context of fire. Speakers hail from Ukraine (fire in war), Portugal, Cyprus and the Netherlands, as well as a representative from UN-DRR Brussels. It’s also a chance to catch up with Wageningen colleagues and students old and new!
Register your expected attendance by sending an email to jeroen.warner@wur.nl.
Program
11.45 Opening statement (Cathelijne Stoof, Jeroen Warner)
12.00 Keynote by George Boustras, Cyprus: integrated fire management: a view from the Mediterranean
12.30 Fiona Newman-Thacker
Lunch break 13.00- 13.45
13.45 Integrated (fire) disaster management a view from UNDRR: Chiara Menchesi
14.00 Serhii Sydirenko: wildfire in wartime
14.30 Robert Coates: wildfire at the urban interface
15.00 Fantina Tedim
15.30 Closure – and off to De Spot for drinks!
Centre for Space, Place and Society 