Forest Camp 2026: A fifth edition, the hottest week on record, and a new line in EU wildfire policy
By Alexander Held, European Forest Institute.
The first edition of Forest Camp took place in Golabki, and five editions later, we returned once more to the SNEP Village and the surrounding forests of central Poland — only this time, we trained through the hottest week Poland has ever recorded.
The European Forest Institute (EFI) Resilience Programme, with its WKR initiative, supported SNEP – Stowarzyszenie Niezależnych Ekspertów Pożarnictwa (EN: Association of Independent Fire Expert) – over the years, and now, with FoRISK, we continue that tradition. This year, that support carries a little more weight than usual: on 25 March 2026, the European Commission adopted its Communication on integrated wildfire risk management, and it names FoRISK directly as a partner for capacity building and knowledge exchange on fire prevention. Forest Camp is exactly that partnership in practice, not only on paper.
The Camp drew some 140 participants from 19 countries this year — firefighters and foresters, but also communicators from FSC International, association leaders from Moldova, academics, and returning friends from Ukraine, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK. As ever, the mix mattered more than the headcount: three-plus days of fire-beater stations, live-fire containment with hand tools and no water, tactical scenarios as well as risk analysis, fire analysis and fire prevention…..and evenings that inevitably ended around a bonfire — with, this year, at least one contingent determined to prove that full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and nearly 40°C heat need not get in the way of dancing.
That heat was not incidental. Poland broke its all-time temperature record this summer, and camp stations themselves reportedly touched 45°C. Training under those conditions is exhausting, but it is also the most honest rehearsal there is: several participants told us afterwards that the authenticity of fighting fire in real heat, rather than a cool-weather simulation, was the single most valuable part of the week.
The networking, as always, did the rest. Irish Forest Service colleagues left already planning a follow-up meeting with their own Fire Service; FSC International asked for materials to carry the camp’s lessons into their global communications; Moldova’s “Be Safe” volunteer association committed to passing everything on to their national network; and the UK’s National Fire Chiefs Council called the experience of their delegation “overwhelmingly positive,” with an eye already on deeper UK–Europe cooperation. One participant, only half-joking, put the whole week’s spirit into three words: “Team India” — the nickname their mixed international group gave itself, and which turned up, independently, in more than one account of the week.
Forest Camp’s reach keeps widening. The model has already inspired sister trainings in the Czech Republic and Lebanon, and even Iceland’s fire and land-management community. The “fire world” keeps getting smaller, in the best way.
Looking ahead, the Commission’s new wildfire strategy commits to launching a pan-European exchange of young firefighters under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism by 2027, to build what it calls a common European culture of preparedness. We have been building exactly that, one Polish forest at a time, since 2022 — and we are ready to make sure that when Brussels looks for a delivery partner, it does not need to look far.
For more background and perspectives on Forest Camp, see previous coverage in Wildfire Magazine.
