During the virtual training of the AFoCO Regional Education and Training Center (RETC) on forest fire management in 2021, 47 young forest fire officers of 14 member countries pointed out that developing effective and well-structured communication schema across the level is a critical crosscutting issue to ensure their support for effective fire prevention and management at all administrative levels. They shared a common view that enhancing the field-level forest firefighting capacities should be a prerequisite for the sound operation of the nationwide forest fire monitoring system. AFoCO RETC, the Royal Forest Department of Thailand, and the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs collaborated to develop and execute a joint capacity-building initiative entitled “Training of Trainers on Forest Fire Suppression,” which took place from 15-19 May in Thailand.

This policy brief summarizes the collective knowledge gained from participants’ discussions at the workshop.