The mitigation of the effects of climate change and global warming through the prevention and early extinction of forest fires.

Jaime Senabre

Director of SINIF.
University of Alicante, Spain.

Abstract: 

 

The Planet is immersed in an ecological crisis. To a large extent, human behavior has been aggravating the deterioration of the environment. Fire is a natural ecological factor that acts as a regulating agent of vegetation and landscape shaper. However, forest fires have gone from being a tool for survival to becoming an environmental problem that doesn ́t understand borders and that affects all the components of the environment (atmosphere, vegetation, fauna, soil and water) and that requires an integral approach, both locally and globally. The forest is a source of wealth that must be protected, conserved, revalued and improved productivity. Forest fires are a source of pollutant emissions into the atmosphere that are dangerous and pose a significant threat, since they can degrade the air that is breathed at unhealthy levels, mainly in geographic areas near the site of the forest fire, but also in others distant, since these pollutants, invisible to the human eye, can travel thousands of kilometers driven by the wind. In this paper, we emphasize the importance of pollutant emissions from forest fires, since these may be influencing global warming and climate change. Likewise, we propose a series of basic actions that serve as a starting point to establish an Integral Plan for the Prevention of Forest Fires and that include: the early extinction of the fire (to reduce to the maximum the burnt surface and the polluting emissions), management of the forest (including: preventive forestry, limited use of fire, promotion of grazing, regularization of activities and productivity of forest resources), mosaic landscape design (which seeks the fragmentation of the territory), urban planning (which minimizes the risks in the forest urban interface), greater professionalization and coordination of emergency services (especially forest firefighters), the promotion of self-protection (individual and collective) and, finally, education (to increase environmental awareness and proactive behavior). In short, we are aware that fire has an ecological role and that its suppression is impossible, but we must focus on those actions that contribute least to the global deterioration of the Planet.

Citation: Senabre, J. (2019). The mitigation of the effects of climate change and global warming through the prevention and early extinction of forest fires. Journal of Expert Opnion on Environmental Biology.. ISSN: 2325-9655. Volume 8. 3rd. World Summit on Climate Change and Global Warming. Prague, Czech Republic. Book of abstracts. pp53. DOI: 10.4172/2325-9655-C1-045

The experience of trauma in forest firefighters through indirect exposure.

Jaime Senabre

Director of SINIF.
University of Alicante, Spain.

One of the characteristics of work in the extinction of forest fires is the exposure of forest firefighters to situations that require a great demand of personal resources, both physical and psychological, which is an important source of stress for these professionals. On occasion, forest firefighters face critical situations that can be a traumatic experience capable of generating deep discomfort, both individually and collectively. This type of negative events can cause invisible emotional scars, difficult to erase and complex approach. Now, we know that an inadequate management of empathy towards victims can facilitate the initiation of a process of secondary traumatic stress in firefighters, due to emotional contagion. This paper deals with indirect exposure to trauma through the indiscriminate consumption of images and traumatic stories offered by the media (press and TV) or social networks. Our research team was able to observe how Forest Fire Brigades, which participated as Control Group in a study on emotional impact in forest firefighters after a forest fire in Spain with fatalities, manifested post-traumatic symptomatology, almost at the same level as those firefighters who participated directly in the works of extinction of that fire. The conclusions indicate that indirect exposure to trauma, uncontrolled empathy towards victims, and social or professional identification with victims may have (both in emergency professionals and in the general population) emotional consequences, similar to those produced in the direct victims of the fire, as well as a latent predisposition to manifest maladaptive behaviors before similar situations or that remember the lived experience.Finally, guidelines are offered on "what to do" to avoid emotional contagion due to indirect exposure to trauma, such as, for example, a dosed and unrepeated consumption of news and images with a heavy dramatic load.

 ScientificTracks Abstracts: J Psychol Psychother

 Citation: Senabre, J. (2018). The experience of trauma in forest firefighters through indirect exposure. Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy. ISSN: 2161-0487. Volume 8. World Summit on Stress, Mindfulness and Philosophy. Boston, USA. Book of abstracts. pp52. DOI: 10.4172/2161-0487-C4-032

World Summit on Stress, Mindfulness and Philosophy. August 27-28, 2018 | Boston, USA.

Characteristic profile of forest fire risk from social perception: A study with Spanish population.

Jaime Senabre^1,2

¹Director of SINIF.

² Research Group on Climate and Territorial Planning. University of Alicante. Spain.

Forest fires represent an evolutionary opportunity for some species and, at times, a tragedy for human societies. The devastating fires of 2017 in Portugal and 2018 in Greece are a clear example of this. Forest fires have been considered by many researchers as a Natural Hazard or Risk, something that makes us disagree, given that the human being has a predominant influence on the origin of most ignitions and, in the evolution and consequences thereof.

From an anthropogenic vision of the fires, we are convinced that not only must we work on prevention, self-protection and integral management of the territory, but also on proactive fire education programs.

For this reason, we present a characteristic profile of forest fire risk, developed from the study of the social perception of this threat with a population resident in Spain. There is no doubt that there are many factors that can affect the social perception of risks: cultural, sociological, situational, psychological, psychosocial and those related to the qualitative characteristics of the source of risk. All these factors are interrelated.

The evaluation of the qualitative characteristics of forest fire risk based on the study of social perception, will allow us to better understand the reasons for not acting proactively in the face of the threat of forest fire. Also, it can be useful when designing campaigns to raise awareness and prevent forest fires, in short, as a tool for education on environmental safety issues.

WC Climate Change 2018: Impacts & Responses

September 13-15, 2018 | Rome, Italy 

Citation: Senabre, J. (2018). Characteristic profile of forest fire risk from social perception: A study with Spanish population. WC Climate Change 2018: Impacts & Responses. Rome, Italy. Book of abstracts. pp45. https://innovinc.org/images/preconference/vi_30.pdf

Violence in fire stations: A study with Spanish firefighters.

Jaime Senabre Director of SINIF.

University of Alicante, Spain.

Abstract

Violence of any kind between humans is nothing new. In the last decades a great interest has been awakened by the study of violence developed in work environments. Variety, temporality and frequency are necessary criteria for diagnosis. Factors related to the organization of work and the work environment could facilitate this type of behavior. Likewise, personality factors of the aggressor and the victim could play a role in the whole process, as well as the type of response of the aggrieved person. For the analysis, three questionnaires will be used, one of personality factors, the LIPT-60, on perception and strategies of workplace harassment and a Spanish adaptation of the MBI conducted by Senabre (2005) for fire services. The sample is composed of 34 firefighters, of which 20 are forest firefighters. Preliminary results suggest that 8.82% of the participants in the study reported that they had the perception that they were being harassed in their work, compared to 91.17% who don???t think that they have this work situation. Affability, age and emotional fatigue do seem to play their role in different ways. Younger professionals seem to be the most vulnerable to suffer this type of behavior, as well as those who are more emotionally exhausted. However, the more affable firefighters, that is, those who are more pleasant and friendly can be less affected by this type of aggression. Another important fact that emerges from this research is that there is a clear trend in these groups to deny any behavior of harassment, so the figures could be higher. Thus, we can conclude that workplace harassment is present in the fire services, being the strategies of job loss of prestige and intimidation manifested the most prevalent in the sample studied, followed by the obstruction of progress. The loss of prestige in the workplace is more frequently used by forest firefighters and the intimidation manifested among structural firefighters. According to the data provided in this study, we can notice that violent behaviors and harassment occur in fire stations, especially when working conditions are more precarious.

Citation: Senabre, Jaime (2018). Violence in fire stations: A study with Spanish firefighters. In Journal of Child & Adolescent Behaviour, Vol. 6, pp 43. DOI: 10.4172/2375-4494-C1-006

Journal of Child & Adolescent Behaviour | ISSN: 2375-4494 | Volume 6

30^th World Psychiatrists and Psychologists Meet. Osaka, Japan.

The emotional impact caused by a traumatic event and the process of second victimization in forest firefighters.

Jaime Senabre

Director of SINIF.

University of Alicante, Spain.

Abstract:

The forest fire extinguishing services sometimes face critical situations that can suppose a traumatic experience capable of generating a deep discomfort in the interveners, such as the loss of companions during the work of extinction, burns caused by the fire, the emotional impact in situations of entrapment, etc. This type of negative events can provoke fear and feelings of terror in the victims, as well as invisible emotional scars, difficult to erase and of complex approach.

An inadequate assistance to this type of professionals, affected by a critical incident of these characteristics can originate various processes of victimization, causing a psychological damage characterized by pain, anger, indignation, guilt, fear, awe, intense re-experimentation of what was lived, physiological and psychological hyperactivation, apathy, helplessness, feeling of loss of control, insecurity and avoidance behaviors.

The absence of empathy and sensitivity of the staff that attends to the victims, together with a lack of information and a mismatch between the expected and received treatment can cause a negative feeling in the firefighters affected by the traumatic incident, capable of initiating a process of revictimization called second victimization. In this work, concepts such as traumatic experience, traumatic event, psychological damage and second victimization are addressed.

Likewise, the conditioning factors of the emotional impact (external and internal), the objectives of the psychological help work and the basic skills to develop it are pointed out. Also, the phases through which the forest firefighters go when they suffer a revictimization are indicated. 

Finally, some guidelines are offered on what to do to avoid a second victimization.

Citation: Senabre, Jaime (2018).  The emotional impact caused by a traumatic event and the process of second victimization in forest firefighters. In Journal of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Vol. 8, pp 38 DOI: 10.4172/2161-0487-C3-030

PDF link

Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy

Forest fires and soil loss: A threat to biodiversity.

Jaime Senabre.
University of Alicante, Spain.
Director of SINIF.

Abstract:

Society doesn’t seem to be aware of the negative effects that forest fires have on the soil, whose degradation can become irreversible in many cases. The soil is one of the fundamental elements for life on Earth and that isn’t given due attention. In the same way, in the studies on forest fires the action of the natural risks in territories affected by forest fires and the influence of these in the loss of soil are little taken into account. A determining factor of plant productivity is the quality of the soil, a limited resource that is easily destroyed, not only by the incidence of fires, but by the climatic and meteorological conditions to which the area affected by fire can be subjected: Torrential rains, floods, droughts, extreme temperatures, strong winds that can accentuate the loss of nutrients and erosion. According to data obtained from a survey on the perception of risk by natural phenomena carried out with the Spanish population (n=1223), 67.54% of the respondents think that they live in an area threatened by some natural phenomenon and 73.02% indicate that at some moment in his life, some natural disaster has occurred that has damaged the community in which he lives. In this line, another study conducted by our research group provides us with relevant data on the frequency perception of forest fires in Spain (n=1068), where 58.52% of the population declare to suffer the impact of forest fires each year, 5.34% every 10 years or more and 3.46% never. Given these findings on risk perception and based on actual incidence data, it is possible to prepare, not only forest fire risk maps, but also risk maps of natural hazards to relate them, in order to establish the potential risk of loss of soil and the possible threat to biodiversity, based, mainly, on the observed changes in fire and natural disaster regimes.

Citation: Jaime Senabre (2018). Forest fires and soil loss: A threat to biodiversity. In Journal of Ecosystem & Ecography. Volume 8 (pp 43). DOI: 10.4172/2157-7625-C4-041 

Journal Link: 

https://www.omicsonline.org/ArchiveJEE/biodiversity-congress-2018-proceedings-tracks.php 

7^th International Conference on Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Management

 July 26-27, 2018 Melbourne, Australia

Modulating effect of hardiness in the development of emotional trauma in firefighters trapped in forest fire.

Abstract

Some authors have pointed out that the individuals with resistant personality deal with stressful situations in an active and committed way, perceiving them as less threatening. Also, we know that stress acts as a mediator in the predisposition, precipitation or exacerbation of the disease. Emergency services professionals are often confronted with numerous critical incidents that are likely to break into their lives and cause them to suffer, often because of their surprising nature. The traumatic experience is pointed out as one of the most revealing sources of deep discomfort. The aim of this study is to determine if the resistant personality or hardiness plays a role as a modulator of the stress experience and, more specifically, the development of posttraumatic stress. To this end, we evaluated a sample of firefighters, who were surprised by the fire in an entrapment situation during the extinction of a forest fire in the province of Alicante (Spain) and that had a fatal outcome for some of the emergency device personnel. The results indicate that 37.5% of the sample developed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at the clinical level after the month of the incident and 25% some type of posttraumatic symptomatology (PTSD sub-syndrome); the remaining 37.5% were not emotionally affected by that stress experience. On the other hand, the dispersion analysis shows a tendency to the appearance of PTSD as the hardiness decreases (figure 1). These results support the idea that resistant personality can play a modulating role in the development of emotional trauma. The dimensions of the construct, implication and challenge, seem to have a greater role in this stress modulating process, being the influence of control more contained. In the discussion, emphasis is given on the need for specialized evaluation and follow up after the experience of a critical incident of these characteristics, as well as the design of training actions aimed at the development of knowledge, skills, abilities and psychological skills in professionals belonging to the different emergency services, and more specifically, firefighters.

 https://www.omicsonline.org/proceedings/modulating-effect-of-hardiness-in-the-development-of-emotional-trauma-in-firefighters-trapped-in-forest-fire-85033.html

4^th International Conference on Mental Health and Human Resilience

Cita:  Senabre, J. (2018). Modulating effect of hardiness in the development of emotional trauma in firefighters trapped in forest fire. In International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human Resilience 2018, Volume 20, pp 52. DOI: 10.4172/1522-4821-C1-011. ISSN: 1522-4821.

https://www.omicsonline.org/conference-proceedings/1522-4821-C1-011-011.pdf