Preventing forest fires starts with every citizen. The BRIDGE pilot project, coordinated by Instituto Superior Técnico, aimed to ‘bridge’ science and local communities in the Algarve region, empowering the population and forest communities of Monchique to implement measures to reduce fire risk in this area. The project ran from March 2021 to June 2024, and the results are expected to help promote adaptive fire risk management and make the national territory more resilient to these events.

Maria do Rosário Partidário, a professor at Técnico and a researcher at the Centre for Innovation in Territory, Urbanism and Architecture (CiTUA), led the project team, which included the Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil and the University of the Algarve. The project was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under the call for Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects on Prevention and Fighting of Forest Fires.

Aiming to raise awareness of forest fire risk and promote continued commitment to a consensus-based risk reduction strategy, BRIDGE led to the establishment of a collaborative local capacity-building laboratory (InnoLab BRIDGE) and the creation of a Local Action Group. This group is currently working on implementing fire risk reduction measures.

In the case of InnoLab, the methodology applied and the results obtained after its implementation sparked the interest of national, regional and municipal organisations that are part of the Integrated Rural Fire Management System in the Algarve Region. The Agency for Integrated Rural Fire Management has funded the application of the InnoLab methodology in other forest areas in the Algarve region, specifically in Serra do Caldeirão, as part of a new project called InnoBRIDGE, which is currently being contracted.

The Técnico team consists of professors Maria do Rosário Partidário and Isabel Loupa Ramos, researchers Joana Dias, Rute Martins and Margarida Monteiro and students Guilherme Saad and Ana Paula Soares.
The BRIDGE project led to the publication of three scientific articles in peer-reviewed international journals and inspired four master’s theses, contributing to the advancement of scientific knowledge in the field of adaptive management of forest fire risk.