GUARDIAN - Green Urban Actions for Resilient fire Defence of the Interface Area

The project adopts a combined strategy based on the use of recycled water for fire mitigation and protection, providing preventive irrigation and extinction water spraying patterns automatically programmed. GUARDIAN will implement the hydraulic infrastructure to supply recycled water from the Waste Water Treatment Plant Camp del Turia II to the Wildland-Urban Interface of La Vallesa, and the elements (irrigation and sprinkler towers) which make up the defensive barrier. The installation, positioned in the fire line between forests and urban areas, will integrate irrigation and fireplugs with high-pressure hydrant cannons covering the perimeter. 
The operation of the fire prevention and suppression infrastructure will be based on sensor networks and forecast services processed by an automatic system.
In order to support this hydraulic infrastructure, GUARDIAN will also make use of an existing wetland (Vallesa pond) as an emergency reservoir added to tanks in the system. In order to achieve the required water quality for the project’s goals, a modular advanced water treatment will be implemented at the existing facility.
Furthermore, soil and vegetation works (reduction of tree density, particularly sunken or enfeebled ones, ladder fuels, pruning, shrub spacing, slash and vegetation debris reduction etc.) will be carried out, improving the ecologic conditions and the fire resilience of the Vallesa forest.
Last but not least, training to upgrade the preparedness of the population will be carried out, in order to enhance risk perception, create awareness on fire mechanisms, communicate the basis of the project and improve self-protection (fire resilient gardening, household protection…).