A system for the simulation and the operational prediction of the vegetation wild fires

The wild fires of the vegetation are in the Mediterranean countries very frequent, the fire fighting requires extensive resources, material losses are significant and casualties of firefighters are one of the worst consequences. Due to large spatial extension, and the duration of several days, many of the vegetation wild fires are often demanding for advancement of the firefighting technology. In Croatia is the existing organization a mixture of the public professional firefighting brigades and firefighter volunteers and it can successfully cope with smaller and medium vegetation wild fires. In the case of the dynamic spreading of the fires at larger area and lasting more than day or two, these resources are not sufficient. There are several approaches how to improve efficiency of the available fire fighting resources and they are related to costly organizational changes, change of funding scheme, purchasing the new technology etc. Nevertheless, to the future of the started processes, the training of the fire fighting commanding officers and operations managers is a constant need and it is part of the normal activity. One part of the education and training not implemented yet is the training for management and commanding in larger and spatially and temporally changing fires of the vegetation, requiring more firefighters (e.g. more than 100). The vegetation fires in the year 2007. In the coastal region, especially in the Dubrovnik – Neretva County, show all deficiencies of the existing fire fighting system in the Republic of Croatia and stress the need for urgent and significant advancements.