Our Project Awarded the National Label – “Facing Risk, Let’s Act!”

The Association of the Friends of the Firefighters’ Museum of La Réunion and the Indian Ocean has received the national label “Facing Risk, Let’s Act!”, awarded as part of the 2025 National Resilience Day by the French Ministry for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion.

This distinction recognises the museum’s contribution to promoting risk awareness and the prevention of natural and technological hazards in La Réunion. It places our work within a national public policy aimed at informing and preparing the population.

The application, submitted by our president Nicolas Folio and approved on 28 October 2025, brought together three complementary actions:

• The book History of the Firefighters of La Réunion – a collective work published by Orphie, covering 70 years of rescue operations on the island and highlighting the major risks faced by the population, especially wildfires and inter-service cooperation.
• The travelling exhibition Au feu les pompiers ! 70 ans du SDIS de La Réunion – shown in Saint-Denis and later at the Departmental Archives, illustrating the collective memory of rescue operations in La Réunion.
• The museum’s website and social media platforms – true awareness tools, offering educational content on major risks, interactive quizzes, and historical resources for the general public, schools, and university students.

This label highlights the coherence of our mission: preserving memory to better prepare the future. It encourages the association to strengthen the integration of risk culture into all its activities, notably through new sections dedicated to major risks in La Réunion and the development of reinforced educational programmes.

We warmly thank our institutional partners – SDIS de La Réunion, the Departmental Archives, the Departmental Library, and Orphie Editions – whose support made this nationally recognised project possible.

The museum is proud to join the national map of labelled initiatives, available on carte-jnr.fr.