The city of Valencia de Alcántara, in Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain, hosted a fire drill from May 3 to 5 for the Valkyries project, led by Indra, which aims to improve coordination in cross-border emergencies.
Indra has developed a digital twin (Hybrid Twin Lab) of its iSafety emergency management solution, which was used during the simulation as a command and control centre to help coordinate the different personnel.
Indra coordinates the consortium of 17 partners, made up of emergency organisations, companies, universities and technology centres from eight European countries, of the Valkyries project, with a budget of 6 million euros, financed by the European innovation programme H2020.
More than 400 people in Spain and Portugal took part in a fire drill on the border between the two countries, putting into practice the European Valkyries project, led by Indra, which aims to improve the coordination of cross-border emergency operations using technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence and "big data".
From 3 to 5 May, Valencia de Alcántara (Cáceres) hosted a conference of the European Valkyries project, led by Indra, which included this simulation to standardise and test the harmonised protocols of nomenclature, processes, equipment and operations developed in the project on a new generation technological base, which includes technologies such as 5G communications, predictive analysis based on big data and Artificial Intelligence, drones and digital twins, among others.
Extremadura and Portugal have developed this Thursday a simulation of forest fire and cross-border car traffic accident, framed in the Valkyries Extremadura-Portugal Project, to "test" and "learn" from the different simulated situations and work on their coordination.
This was indicated by the Director General of Emergencies, Civil Protection and the Interior of Extremadura, Nieves Villar, who pointed out that more than 400 personnel are taking part.
The Regional Government of Extremadura, together with the Portuguese National Authority for Emergencies and Civil Protection and the European consortium Valkyries project, organised this Thursday a simulation of a suspected forest fire in an area between the Cáceres town of Valencia de Alcántara and the Portuguese Sierra de San Mamede, in which more than 400 professionals took part.
The drill served to test the performance of the emergency services on both sides of La Raya in coordinating effectively, controlling the flames, bringing the affected populations to safety and managing to extinguish the fire.
Yanakiev, Y., García Cid, M. I., Maestre Vidal, J., Stoianov, N., & Sotelo Monge, M. A. (2022, August).
VALKYRIES: Harmonization and Pre-Standardization of Technology, Training and Tactical Coordinated Operations for First Responders on EU MCI.
In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (pp. 1-6).
After the round table held at the I Spanish National Congress of Emergencies that took place on June 9, 2022, the leading digital magazine in defense and security news Infodefensa became interested in the project and published an article on the importance of the project in the field of civil security and civil-military cooperation in the European Union.
The Spanish magazine Seguritecnia, focused on key aspects of Civil Security, published an article about VALKYRIES in the release Nº 494 on March-April.
The article provides an overview of the main opportunities for improvement, in terms of pre-standardization and harmonization actions, which have been detected in the deployment and interoperability of first responders in Multi-casualty incidents (MCI) and that have promoted the creation of the VALKYRIES project.
At the end of January, AES (Spanish Association of Security Companies) published an article in its newsletter about the VALKYRIES project and, more specifically, about the demonstration scenario that will take place on the border between Spain and Portugal.
This demonstrator will simulate a large fire with multiple victims that will require the deployment of multidisciplinary emergency teams and cross-border coordination between both countries.
Catastrophic wildfires in Europe have become a far too common headline and this year has been no exception as the world once again bore witness to parts of the continent burning. While southern Europe is no stranger to the devastation and loss they leave in their wake, countries in central and northern Europe – areas that were previously not prone to wildfires – are now also experiencing them.
Harnessing science and technology, researchers are proving that there is more than one way to fight and respond to fire.
DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this website and in any dissemination activities reflects the views only of the author. The Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.
2021 | This project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement:
Nº 101020676
