In recent years, wildfires have become one of the greatest civil protection challenges in Europe. Rising temperatures, prolonged vegetation dryness and the lack of forest management have increasingly exposed communities located at the wildland–urban interface to fire risk. This situation highlights the need to strengthen risk awareness among people living in forested areas by encouraging the adoption of preventive measures in homes and their immediate surroundings. All of this is essential to ensure safety and to facilitate the work of emergency services in the event of a wildfire.

In this context, the European FIREPRIME project has developed a free, multilingual (English, Spanish, Catalan, German and Swedish) app that offers residents of forested areas a simple, intuitive and rigorous tool to understand risk and assess the vulnerability of their homes to wildfires, enabling them to make informed decisions to improve household safety. 

The app was developed by the Software and Service Engineering Group (SSG) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC). It incorporates a risk analysis algorithm designed by the Centre for Technological Risk Studies (CERTEC) of the UPC, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Austria and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. These institutions, together with the UOC and the Pau Costa Foundation, are all members of the FIREPRIME project.

The FIREPRIME app, available on Google Play and the App Store, is a simple yet rigorous tool for residents of forest areas to assess their home's risk level and make informed decisions to reduce its vulnerability. Emergency service professionals—firefighters, civil protection officers, rural agents and volunteer fire-defence personnel—and residents of the Sol i Aire, La Floresta and Mas Fortuny communities in Collserola (Barcelona) were enlisted to develop and test it.

"The conceptualisation of the app has been informed by a prior analysis of risk perception and the diversity of capacities and vulnerabilities of the urban-forest interface communities with which we have collaborated in FIREPRIME. This was a key factor in enabling us to create an app tailored to the real needs of the communities," says the project coordinator, Elsa Pastor, a researcher at CERTEC-UPC and a professor at the Barcelona East Engineering School (EEBE) of the UPC.

The app combines two key types of information: it determines the wildfire hazard of the area where the home is located using data from the European Copernicus programme and calculates the home’s vulnerability based on information provided by users regarding the structural and environmental characteristics of their property.

Among the factors evaluated are structural elements such as roof type, facade cladding, porches or balconies, drainage systems, ventilation systems and window and frame materials, all of which influence the likelihood of fire entering the home. Environmental factors are also analysed, including nearby vegetation, fencing type, the presence of non-vegetative fuels and terrain characteristics.

“The FIREPRIME app has a clear European dimension, as it has been designed to consider the diversity of construction practices across different countries, as well as differences in wildfire hazard intensity. This allows risk assessments and recommendations to be adapted to different contexts and housing typologies across Europe,” explains Elsa Pastor.

Based on the analysis, the app provides an estimate of wildfire risk and offers recommendations to reduce vulnerability, both through structural improvements and changes to the surrounding environment. In addition, the tool also provides official self-protection recommendations in the event of a fire, presented in a clear and visual way.

The FIREPRIME app was presented on 27 January, as part of Cyprus’s presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2026, an event that brought together over a hundred civil protection representatives from EU countries to advance the Union's preparedness for wildfires.

About the FIREPRIME project

FIREPRIME is a European project coordinated by CERTEC-UPC and co-funded by the European Union through the UCPM-2023-KAPP call (Knowledge for Action in Prevention and Preparedness). The project aims to lay the foundations for a European programme for wildfire-prepared communities. Over its two-year duration, FIREPRIME has developed tools and resources for both civil protection authorities and citizens, promoting individual responsibility and collective action in response to wildfire risk.