The first meeting of the Italian group for the management of forest wildfires (gruppo “Gestione Incendi Boschivi”) was held on June 15-16, 2016, in Monticiano (SI), Tuscany, Italy, at AIB (Centro di Addestramento Antincendio Boschivo) premises.
The group is an initiative of SISEF society (Italian Society of Forestry and Ecology – Società Italiana di Selvicoltura ed Ecologia Forestale).

Dr. G. Calvani (Tuscany Region) and Prof. D. Travaglini (SISEF board) gave a welcome message and opened the meeting. Participants elected the coordinator of the group, Dr. D. Ascoli (University of Turin) which proposed as vice-coordinators CMCC researcher M. Salis (IAFES Division and University of Sassari) and Dr. L. Tonarelli (DREAM Italia).
They will foster and coordinate all the actions of the group for the next two years.

The group aims at fostering research and collaboration while providing information to society. More in detail, those are some of the activities planned: the group will publish a scientific paper (to be published on an ISI journal) on fuel characterization in Italy and will organize a workshop on fire management in Sardinia (May-June 2017) for Italian researchers while settling and coordinating a session dedicated to fire management at the next SISEF Conference in Palermo (September 2017). A workshop on precautionary forestry measures for mixed groups (researchers and experts) will be also organized. Other initiatives will be the organization of university classes on forest fire management, the organization of a meeting for researchers and policy makers, the realization of a newsletter to be published on SISEF website and of several articles and documentaries for the general public.