Forest fires represent a major problem, directly affecting the environment, the economy and even threatening human lives. Recent scientific and technical advances in prevention, management and extinction are not enough to mitigate this complex phenomenon. Therefore, new approaches that integrate the whole of society, specially focusing the education of young people, are essential.

The application of innovative educational methodologies, such as Service-Learning (S-L), can play a key role. The main objective of our project “Service-Learning to improve training and employability in wildfire management” is to involve citizens in the problem of forest fires and, in this way, transfer scientific-technical knowledge and civic values to the population through educational strategies based on S-L.

Annually, Mediterranean countries are severely affected by wildfires and future climate perspectives are not encouraging. It is true that recent advances in fire prevention and forest restoration help to reduce the problem but fire effects on natural resources and local economy are still of large magnitude. Thus, technical approaches must be accompanied by environmental education.

Learning processes, from kindergarten to higher education, should go beyond knowledge collection to become a complete formative and transformative process. Education and training programs are necessary to address the problem of forest fires.