Firepol ERC

A (slightly overdue) thank you to Peter Moore for delivering an excellent presentation on his long-standing work and reflections on fire management governance. We were delighted to host him online and hope to welcome him to Turin in person next time!

Drawing on decades of research and practice, the talk traced the key steps - and occasional missteps - that shaped his journey from early work on expert systems and artificial intelligence to community-based and integrated approaches to fire management. The presentation highlighted the evolution of concepts such as Community-Based Fire Management (CBFiM) and Integrated Fire Management (IFM), emphasizing the importance of participation, empowerment, and the integration of multiple perspectives and actors in fire governance. Moore also shared insights into recent international initiatives, including the development of the forthcoming Guide to IFM Governance Assessment.

We would also like to thank the Fire-Adapt group for hosting this workshop within their Study Hub and for the stimulating discussions that followed. Bringing together researchers and practitioners from the fire management sector created a valuable space for exchange, reflection, and dialogue across disciplines and experiences.
Thank you again to everyone who contributed to such an engaging event.

Join us for our next seminar on Wednesday June 17 at 4.30PM.
The seminar will be in Spanish and it will take place in person at the Castello del Valentino in Turin.
It will also be accessible online: https://meet.google.com/jmj-mzbq-xzs

Speakers:
🔥Fernando Laprovitta - CIT Rafaela/Universidad Nacional del Nordeste
Postales de agua y fuego: la gente, el fuego y los humedales de los Esteros del Iberá y la Isla Apipé Grande (Corrientes, Argentina).
La presentación aborda las dinámicas socioambientales de los humedales correntinos a partir de la figura del "mencho correntino", el campesino-ganadero que produce cotidianamente naturaleza y cultura mediante el fuego. Se propondrán reflexiones sobre la ontología campesina-ganadera, su emergencia histórica y sus saberes sobre el uso del fuego en la reproducción y el control del paisaje, así como sobre su ecología política del fuego frente a otros modelos de producción agraria y de naturaleza.

🔥BRIAN G. Ferrero - CONICET-CIT Rafaela / Universidad Nacional de Rafaela
Fuegos como herramienta de gestión territorial. Los usos del fuego en un área rural de Argentina.
El fuego es una herramienta central de gestión territorial en las áreas rurales de América Latina, arraigada en los saberes locales e indígenas y hoy en tensión con el Estado moderno, la gobernanza ambiental tecnocrática y los movimientos ambientalistas. A partir de un trabajo etnográfico en las islas del río Paraná, la presentación analiza los múltiples sentidos y usos del fuego – productivos, domésticos y políticos – mostrando cómo "sin fuego no hay islas" y cómo los regímenes de fuego expresan proyectos políticos que definen quién decide sobre el territorio.

Last week marked the conclusion of the first FIREPOL Workshop Series. We would like to sincerely thank everyone who joined us throughout the programme, both in person and online. We were delighted by the engagement and discussions generated during these events, and we hope to bring this format back next autumn.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Sofyan Ansori, who joined us on May 20 to present FIREPLAY: an interdisciplinary reaserach project that focuses on understanding and documenting Indigenous fire governance in Indonesia, exploring how local communities engage with and manage fire within their social and cultural landscapes.
One of the outcomes of this research is Smoldering, a graphic novel set in Central Kalimantan during the dry season. Through the friendship of two high school girls the story explores adolescence while shedding light on the realities of fire, community, and everyday life in the region. During the workshop, Dr. Ansori shared the ethnographic research process that informed the development of the comic and reflected on the potential of creative storytelling as a research and engagement tool.

We were also pleased to host Dr. Ansori for a highly productive couple of weeks, during which we worked together to further define the activities that FIREPOL will carry out in Central Kalimantan this coming October. Building on previous experiences, we will once again facilitate community theatre workshops to explore how local communities engage with fire management and to better understand the narratives, experiences, and meanings that shape their relationship with wildfire and fire use.

Thank you again to everyone who contributed to making this first workshop series a success. Stay tuned for future FIREPOL activities!

Our PhD candidate Greta Mazzocchi participated in the III Regional Symposium on Integrated Fire Management (III Simpósio Regional do Manejo Integrado do Fogo da Chapada dos Veadeiros), held from 13 to 15 May 2026 in Cavalcante, Goiás, and organized by BRIVAC Fogo together with local organizations and territorial actors engaged in fire management and the care of the Cerrado.

The symposium addressed Integrated Fire Management by bringing together its ecological, cultural and management dimensions: fire ecology, prevention and monitoring, controlled and prescribed burning, traditional uses of fire, and cooperation among communities, brigades, researchers and public institutions.

Over the three days, the programme included lectures, roundtables, workshops, cultural activities and practical demonstrations. These included, among others, a presentation by an Indigenous representative from the Xingu territory on the use of fire in their lands, sessions on pyrodiversities, and a practical snake rescue demonstration by GERTAP.

The meeting concluded with a Sussa Dance Performance, situating the event within the social and historical context of Cavalcante, where the Kalunga community lives in one of the largest Quilombola territories in Brazil.

It was an excellent opportunity to deepen our understanding of local fire management practices and the actors involved. We would like to sincerely thank everyone who contributed to making this initiative possible.

We want to thank our amazing speakers Professor Jay Mistry and Professor Kate Schreckenberg and our discussant Ioanna Chatzikonstantinou, and everyone who joined us — both in person and online — for the first event of our Spring Workshop Series!

Before the public workshop, we had the opportunity to introduce the goals and first results of our project to the speakers during a dedicated meeting and exchange session.

The workshop focused on Integrated Fire Management (IFM) and explored how equity, justice, and power dynamics shape fire governance and wildfire resilience strategies. Through case studies and practical examples, the discussion highlighted the importance of including local actors, traditional fire knowledge, and diverse stakeholder perspectives in IFM policies and practices.

We look forward to welcoming you to our next workshop tomorrow, more information at the following link: https://www.firepol.eu/firepol-workshop-series-spring-2026/

We’re excited to announce a new series of workshops hosted by our research group this May 🔥
Join us to explore critical perspectives on fire governance: from equity and justice in Integrated Fire Management, to innovative approaches like ethnographic comics, and practical tools for assessing governance systems.
📍 In person at the Castello del Valentino (Turin)
💻 Online via Zoom
Find more information on the program and how to participate here: https://www.firepol.eu/firepol-workshop-series-spring-2026/
We hope to see you there!

Our PhD candidate Greta Mazzocchi is currently in Campinas (SP, Brazil) for her second fieldwork period. Currently she is working with the ecofeminist brigade Suçuarana.
The brigade represents a grassroots fire management initiative engaged in protecting remaining areas of native vegetation threatened by increasing wildfire activity associated with urban expansion and real estate speculation in Campinas.
The brigade recently organized the first Regional Meeting of Women Fire Brigadistas and Forest Defenders, which Greta attended. During the event, participants reflected, among other topics, on how violence against the environment is intertwined with patriarchal forms of violence affecting bodies, territories, and communities.

Previous to that she visited the Instituto Chico Mendes station in Chapada dos Guimarães (MT) to study Integrated Fire Management, and a rural community in northern Mato Grosso: the Boa Esperança settlement, affected by repeated fires linked to agricultural frontier expansion.

Last week, our Principal Investigator, Prof. Lorenza Belinda Fontana, was in Bolivia for a series of research and outreach activities carried out within the framework of FIREPOL and Playing with Wildfire projects.

On Monday, March 16, she held a coding meeting with members of the research team to discuss recent progress and coordinate ongoing work with our Latin American partners and coders. The meeting provided an opportunity to review methodological developments, align coding practices, and strengthen collaboration across the regional network.

On Tuesday, March 17, Prof. Fontana delivered a talk hosted by the NGO Ciudadanía Bolivia, presenting the paper Wildfires as Political Weapons, which draws on data collected in Bolivia as part of the Playing with Wildfire project. The presentation sparked a lively discussion and generated valuable feedback on a topic that is highly relevant to current political and environmental debates in the country.

The paper explores how wildfire crises can be politically instrumentalized, asking which socio-ecological characteristics make fire particularly susceptible to manipulation in struggles over land, identity, and power. Focusing on Bolivia’s Chiquitania region, the study examines how wildfire events are transformed from environmental emergencies into tools of political contestation through processes of blame attribution and narrative construction.

More info here: https://www.firepol.eu/wildfires-as-political-weapons-research-activities-and-public-engagement-in-bolivia/

Yesterday, our Post Doctoral Research Fellow Alessandro Tinti, gave a talk during the International Seminar on Natural Resource Management & Sustainable Tribal Development at the Department of Anthropology of Utkal University (Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India).

His presentation illustrated the micro-politics of fire in northern Thailand through the case of hed thob mushroom harvesting. In upland areas characterized by limited livelihood diversification, these high-value non-timber forest products constitute a significant seasonal income source.

Local communities commonly practice controlled underbrush burning during the dry season, based on the belief that fire enhances mushroom yields during the rainy season. Yet such subsistence burning is publicly framed as environmental destruction and criminalized within haze debates. By situating mushroom-related burning within broader state-indigenous and centre-periphery relations, the presentation examines how environmental blame, regulatory authority, and competing epistemologies shape contemporary forest governance.