In Memoriam. Jean-Charles Valette

Jean-Charles passed away suddenly on the 3rd of April at the age of 66. Jean-Charles Valette was a Forestry Engineer. He was recruited in 1973 by the INRA research centre of Avignon. He led his entire career on the theme of Forest Fire Prevention and he became over time one of the most renown international scientific leaders in the field. After three years spent in the experimental unit of Bormes les Mimosas, he joined the forest research unit in Avignon where he developed his research and development activities as the leader of the fire prevention team. His specific contribution to the scientific investigation of wildfires focused on fuel characteristics and flammability, fire behaviour and fire ecology.

By the end of the 1990s, Jean-Charles Valette has structured the French research in the field of fire sciences, at the request of the French Ministry of Agriculture, through the coordination of a group of French research organizations involved in wildfire science. He also gradually became a European leader in his field by coordinating EU-funded projects of increasing size and ambition: EFAISTOS, FIRESTAR, and above all EUFIRELAB gathering a number of European research teams. In the early 2000s he found support for and promoted a scientific partnership on wildfire behaviour modelling between the INRA and the Los Alamos National Laboratory that is still active. Recently, he coordinated a working group of the FORESTERRA international Mediterranean forest research and development network for which he organized a workshop on 12 and 13 December 2013.

Jean-Charles Valette has devoted uncommon energy to build and drive many research networks and projects. He was committed particularly in the transfer of knowledge to users: public and private managers of natural and forest areas, forecast and forest fire prediction services, fire control services, regional councils. He was a hard worker, sometimes working day and night to achieve all the objectives he set himself. In 2008 the acknowledgment of the INRA through the “Lauriers de l’INRA” has crowned his career. Jean-Charles Valette served on the board of directors of the IAWF until recently.

Beyond his scientific activity, Jean-Charles was an erudite humanist who put his mark in the Institute by acting tirelessly for the defense of the collective and the individuals at local as well as national scales; he was also highly motivated by international, particularly European and Mediterranean, collaborations.

Jean-Charles was an invincible warrior for fair causes. Once, there was someone who said about him “an extreme goodness could be misinterpreted as madness”. In any case, Jean-Charles was always ready to help, give an advice or simply listen. He left his imprint in many people and that will maintain him with us.

By Jean-Marc GUEHL, Eric RIGOLOT, François LEFEVRE, Anne JAMBOIS, Gema HERRERO CORRAL (INRA. French National Institute for Agricultural Research).