Fire propagation simulation tools are useful at different levels of forest fire management. From prescribed fire planning to fuel hazard assessment or to the development of fire suppression strategies on wildfires or even training activities. Nevertheless, real time use of such tools is still very limited among the operational authorities for several reasons: lack of good real time data, lack of training or even lack of confidence on the capabilities of actual systems, among others. Wildfire management is a relevant Civil Protection (CP) activity that involves many different and autonomous actors, from public bodies to research centres and should some how reach the general public as an information and alert system. It requires a fast and reliable risk management support system, with real-time or near real-time availability of critical geo-referenced data and settings-based forecasts for fire spreading. CP applications require a strict integration of human and physical resources that must be shared in a coordinated and effective way and be available for the whole emergency procedure.
The GRID and Virtual Organizations (VO) enable such integration by providing the coordination and the sharing of the available interconnected resources (computing, storage, communication, sensors and actuators) geographically scattered across national borders.
On the another hand, OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) based geo-web services are being adopted worldwide, as the technology to support the development of complex distributed applications over grid platforms, to deal with data from many different sources, including meteorological stations and satellites. Recent work clearly showed the advantage of the OGC proposals for open standards for geospatial interchange formats, over past legacy formats and applications.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT
