Laurent Alfonso has been a professional firefighter for 27 years, and has worked as chief of fire and rescue stations and head of the prevention department in the Gard department (southern France). On an operational level, he has commanded and participated in large-scale interventions such as floods and forest fires. He has developed skills in crisis management and coordination in numerous evaluation and training missions in South America, Europe and the Mediterranean basin. Within the UCPM, he has followed the HLC (High Level Coordination course) training programme, and has been deployed twice to South America: in 2017 as a forest fire expert in Chile, and in 2019 in Bolivia as deputy and mission leader in the Amazon, also for forest fires. He also participated in FSX Exercises. In terms of projects, he was coordinator for three years in the PPRD South III programme (2018-2021), and as such he collaborated in two peer reviews (Tunisia and Algeria), more recently to the peer review in Romania (Oct.2022)and Moldova (Apr.20239, but he also peer reviewed the UNDRR Arab region 2020 report. In the first semester of 2022 he participated in the conception and implementation of the events of the French presidency of the Council of the European Union, whose main theme was the adaptation of civil protection to climate change. French representative at the DG ECHO-Disaster Prevention Expert Group (UDRGs), lecturer at Masters in emergency management and damage at University of Malaga (Spain) and Institute for Engineers and Applied Science (Ecole des Mines, Alès, France), and european projects in Protection of Cultural Heritage (ProCultHer), feasibility study for thematic Centres of Excellence (NEMAUSUS). He participates in many seminars at the European and international level as a speaker on crisis management (EU Civil Protection forum, Nicosia Risk Forum, Annual DRMKC seminar, OBA [American Firefighters Organization]), and writes technical or prospect articles (Crisis Response Journal, LIREC, EURACTIV, IEMED).

Alan Ager is Emeritus Scientist at the USDA Forest Service Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula Montana. He received his PhD in 1987 from the University of Washington and began his career with the Forest Service in 1989 as a landscape planner. His recent research has focused on scenario modeling of future forest and fuel management scenarios and the impact of extreme wildfire events. Ager and his team also work on spatial optimization methods to analyze ecological and economic tradeoffs in forest restoration and risk reduction programs. Ager’s team used their scenario modelling platform to develop a 10-year fuel treatment prioritization plan for the US that was the genesis of the national 2022 Wildfire Crisis Strategy. Ager has collaborated on wildfire related research with scientists from Argentina, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ukraine. His current affiliations include courtesy faculty appointments at Oregon State University and Portland State University, Professor at the University of Lisbon, and science advisor to Wildfires.org and Vibrant Planet LLC.

Carlos C. DaCamara is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (Portugal) and a senior researcher at Instituto Dom Luiz. His research includes the remote sensing of active fires and burned areas, the retrieval of land surface temperature and emissivity from satellite observations, the short and medium range assessment of meteorological fire risk, the recovery of vegetation after large wildfires, the meteorological conditions associated to extreme events (droughts and heat waves), and the activity of planetary waves in the atmosphere (in particular blocking episodes) and its impact on climate variability.

Cathelijne Stoof is specialized in pyrogeography - the interdisciplinary study of the distribution and functioning of wildland fire. She is the national delegate of The Netherlands to the EU Expert Group of Forest Fires and coordinator of the Innovative Training Network PyroLife, that trains 15 early career researchers to become our new generation of integrated fire management experts. PyroLife fosters knowledge transfer between countries, risks and people. It thereby combines how the North solves community problems with fire knowledge from the European South, with a strong focus on diversity in terms of interdisciplinarity, science-practice links, geography and gender.

Academic qualifications: Degree in Sociology.Post-graduation in Project Management. Other Activities: Former Deputy Mayor of Oliveira do Hospital; Chairman of the Board of ADI - Integrated Development Agency of Tábua and Oliveira do Hospital; Former Chairman of the Commission for Protection of Children and Young People of Oliveira do Hospital; Chairman of the General Assembly of ADIBER - Association for the Integrated Development of Beira Serra; Former Chairman of the General Assembly of ADEPTOLIVA; Chairman of ADIRAM - Association for the Integrated Development of Mountain Villages Network; Vice-Chairman of DESTINATURE - Agency for the Development of Nature Tourism (EEC iNature); Chairman of the Board of Directors of APdSE – Águas Públicas da Serra da Estrela; Chairman of ARPT Centro; Chairman of the Civil Protection - Municipality of Oliveira do Hospital; Member of the Sub-Regional Commission for the Integrated Management of Rural Fires in the Coimbra Region. Professional Careers: Senior Technician in ETL/GAL ADIBER/Beira Serra; Member of Working Groups for Transnational Cooperation Projects (Europe); Member of the Team "Support for Further Studies/Combat against School Dropout” at Vila Nova de Foz Côa Secondary School/DREN; Contributor in field studies within the sphere of INTERREG/Centre for Regional Development Studies; Participant in the Project "Mountain Villages"/Movimento de Solidariedade Rural.