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Living with wildfires in an era of climate change requires adaptation and weaving together many forms of knowledge. Empirical evidence of knowledge co-production in wildfire management is lacking in Mediterranean European areas. We explored how local ecological knowledge can be leveraged to reduce wildfire risk through an adaptation pathways process in the Montseny massif and wider Tordera River watershed of Catalonia, Spain: an area stewarded through forestry and agriculture, tourism, nature conservation, and fire management. We combined different methods (e.g., a timeline and Three Horizons framework) throughout three workshops with agents of change to co-create adaptation pathways to reduce wildfire risk, integrating a historical perspective of the landscape while envisioning desirable futures. Our results showed that local ecological knowledge and other soft adaptation strategies contribute to innovative sustainable development initiatives that can also mitigate wildfire risk. The adaptation pathways approach holds much potential to inform local policies and support wildfire-based community initiatives in diverse contexts., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Forest fire risk assessment plays a crucial role in the environmental management of natural hazards, serving as a key tool in the prevention of forest fires and the protection of various species. As these risks continue to evolve with environmental changes, the pertinence of contemporary research in this field remains undiminished. This review constructs a comprehensive taxonomic framework for classifying the existing body of literature on forest fire risk assessment within forestry studies. The developed taxonomy categorizes existing studies into 8 primary categories and 23 subcategories, offering a structured perspective on the methodologies and focus areas prevalent in the domain. We categorize a sample of 170 articles to present recent trends and identify research gaps in forest fire risk assessment literature. The classification facilitates a critical evaluation of the current research landscape, identifying areas in need of further exploration. Particularly, our review identifies underrepresented methodologies such as optimization modeling and some advanced machine learning techniques, which present routes for future inquiry. Moreover, the review underscores the necessity for model development that is tailored to specific regional data sets but also adaptable to global data resources, striking a balance between local specificity and broad applicability. Emphasizing the dynamic nature of forest fire behavior, we advocate for models that integrate the burgeoning field of machine learning and multi-criteria decision analysis to refine predictive accuracy and operational effectiveness in fire risk assessment. This study highlights the great potential for new ideas in modeling techniques and emphasizes the need for increased collaboration among research communities to improve the effectiveness of assessing forest fire risks., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Emissions from wildfires worsen air quality and can adversely impact human health. This study utilized the fire inventory from NCAR (FINN) as wildfire emissions, and performed air quality modeling of April-October 2012, 2013, and 2014 using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency CMAQ model under two cases: with and without wildfire emissions. This study then assessed the health impacts and economic values attributable to PM 2.5 from fires. Results indicated that wildfires could lead annually to 4000 cases of premature mortality in the U.S., corresponding to $36 billion losses. Regions with high concentrations of fire-induced PM 2.5 were in the west (e.g., Idaho, Montana, and northern California) and Southeast (e.g., Alabama, Georgia). Metropolitan areas located near fire sources, exhibited large health burdens, such as Los Angeles (119 premature deaths, corresponding to $1.07 billion), Atlanta (76, $0.69 billion), and Houston (65, $0.58 billion). Regions in the downwind of western fires, although experiencing relatively low values of fire-induced PM 2.5 , showed notable health burdens due to their large population, such as metropolitan areas of New York (86, $0.78 billion), Chicago (60, $0.54 billion), and Pittsburgh (32, $0.29 billion). Results suggest that impacts from wildfires are substantial, and to mitigate these impacts, better forest management and more resilient infrastructure would be needed., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Utilizing a unique database of residential real estate transactions, we examine the price change near the boundary of the Bushfire Prone Area (BPA), a planning zone indicating high wildfire risk, after experiencing a salient wildfire event in Australia from 2015 to 2016. While the properties within the BPA are valued more by 1.6%-1.9% in general, home buyers pay less for the properties in the BPA by 0.9%-1.7% after experiencing a salient wildfire event compared with the properties located outside of the BPA. Moreover, the properties in the BPA with greater environmental amenities are more resilient to the impact of wildfire risk salience than the rest BPA, necessitating an analysis of the role of environmental amenities in the research on wildfire risk in the housing market context., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Jian Liang reports financial support was provided by Deakin University - FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND LAW FACULTY RESEARCH GRANT SCHEME., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This study aimed at delineating the wildfire risk zones in a fire-prone region located in a rarely addressed area of western Iran (Paveh city) by assessing the potential of factors such as NDVI, topographic factors (elevation, slope, and aspect), land cover, and evaporation in explaining the fire occurrence probability. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and geographical information system (GIS) methods were used synergistically to integrate the mentioned factors into analysis, following an informed categorization of each factor based on the information on previous fire occurrence. In the AHP process, elevation and evaporation data were considered to be the most critical factors. It was found that the predicted wildfire risk areas were in agreement with past fire events by the use of the methodology proposed by this study. Accordingly, the study's final wildfire risk map indicated that approximately 64.7% of the study area is located in the high- and very high-risk zones. Land-use planners and decision-makers may use the developed map to setup and implement fire prevention strategies and enhance or develop the fire-surveillance logistics and infrastructure, including but not limited to the positions of fire watchtowers, fire lines, and fire sensors, with the aim to minimize potential fire impacts., (© 2022. This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.)

Water supply impairment from increased contaminant mobilization and transport after wildfire is a major concern for communities that rely on surface water from fire-prone watersheds. In this article we present a Monte Carlo simulation method to quantify the likelihood of wildfire impairing water supplies by combining stochastic representations of annual wildfire and rainfall activity. Water quality impairment was evaluated in terms of turbidity limits for treatment by modeling wildfire burn severity, postfire erosion, sediment transport, and suspended sediment dilution in receiving waterbodies. Water supply disruption was analyzed at the system level based on the impairment status of water supply components and their contributions to system performance. We used this approach to assess wildfire-water supply impairment and disruption risks for a system of water supply reservoirs and diversions in the Front Range Mountains of Colorado, USA. Our results indicate that wildfire may impair water quality in a concerning 15.7-19.4% of years for diversions from large watersheds. Reservoir impairment should be rare for off-network reservoirs-ranging from at most 0.01% of years for large reservoirs to nearly 2% of years for small reservoirs. System redundancy meaningfully reduced disruption risk for alternative conveyance routes (4.3-25.0% reduction) and almost eliminated disruption risk for a pair of substitutable terminal sources (99.9% reduction). In contrast, dependency among reservoirs on a conveyance route nearly doubled risk of disruption. Our results highlight the importance of considering water system characteristics when evaluating wildfire-water supply risks., (© 2021 Society for Risk Analysis. This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.)

Although forest fires are indispensable for some ecosystems, they can have profound economic, environmental, and social implications, especially when they reach high intensities. There are two crucial factors in fighting forest fires: the availability of water resources and the service network. The objective of this study was to propose an alternative methodology for allocating water reservoirs to fight forest fires. The research was divided into three stages: zoning of fire risk, delimitation of viable areas for the implementation of water reservoirs, and determining strategic locations for reservoir allocation. The variables analyzed were land use and occupation, provision of watercourses, relief orientation, slope, proximity to roads, temperature, and precipitation. Fuzzy logic, Euclidean distance, and network analysis were used as the modeling techniques. Scenarios with all risk classes and only the high- and very high-risk classes were analyzed. A total of 66% of the area was represented by the low- and moderate-risk fire classes and 53.16% had a low potential for reservoir allocation, influenced by the low availability of water resources in the area. The proposed model efficiently allocated the water collection points in the different scenarios, and allowed the determination of the areas most susceptible to the occurrence of forest fires and the optimal locations for the installation of reservoirs, with the allocation of 21 water reservoirs to attend the areas of high- and very high-risk of occurrence of fires at a safe speed (40 km h -1 ) and 47 reservoirs to meet all risk classes at the same speed. The proposed methodology is feasible, applicable, and adjustable and can be implemented in other conservation units and areas of economic interest., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The spatial and temporal behavior of the occurrence of forest fires in Chile was evaluated in the presence of COVID-19 and mobility restrictions. The fire period from 2015-2016 to 2020-2021 was considered and statistics on mobility restrictions were granted by the Government of Chile. The analysis was developed at different scales of geographic perception. At the national and regional levels, the global behavior of the occurrence was determined, and later at the communal level, the political territorial unit, to determine internal variations attributable to the mobility dynamics in the quarantine period. In the process, the meteorological background of the fire activity was also considered. The results indicate that it is possible to rule out a meteorological effect, based on the variation of the moisture content of fine fuel. There was also no statistical association between the humidity of the fuel and the variation in the occurrence of fires. It is concluded that the communes that presented the greatest mobility of people before the pandemic were those that obtained the greatest reduction in fires. The variation in mobility, the product of restriction measures, is a statistical predictor of the increase or decrease in fires.

Wildfires are common in wildland-urban interfaces (WUIs), where they represent a severe threat to inhabited urban settlements endangering both infrastructure and human life. Given these hazards, it is critical that forest management tools be designed to reduce the risk of wildfire at the WUI. In this regard, a management tool that is increasingly being adopted is that of prescribed fires; however, a complete understanding of their impact has yet to be gained. The aim of this study, therefore, is to analyze long-term soil properties after a prescribed fire and observed if the prescribed fire avoids vegetal fuel continuity. Our study area occupies a Mediterranean forest in the urban settlement of Picarany in the municipality of Almoster (Tarragona, Spain). The vegetation is composed primarily of Pinus halepensis Miller. and Quercus ilex L. and the soil type is classified as Xerorthents. Soil sampling was carried out in four campaigns: just before the prescribed fire (BPF), just after (APF), one year after (1YAPF) and 13 years after the prescribed fire (13YAPF). In each sampling period, 30 samples were taken (0-2.5 cm) from a 72-m 2 experimental plot (4 × 18 m). The soil properties analyzed were total nitrogen (TN), soil organic matter (SOM), pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and extractable calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), potassium (K) and available phosphorus (P) concentrations. The carbon/nitrogen ratio was also calculated. A comparison of pre-fire values (2004) with long-term results (2017) shows increases of EC, Ca and Mg and decreases of TN and SOM. Despite these changes, the prescribed fire was found to be a good tool for managing forest areas. Indeed, the changes in soil properties did not represent a severely degradation of the soil and after 13 years there was no horizontal or vertical fuel continuity in the wildland-urban interface., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

A number of watershed partnerships have emerged in the western US to address the impacts of wildfire through investing in wildfire mitigation activities. To motivate collective action and design effective risk mitigation programs, these stakeholders draw on evidence linking wildfire mitigation to outcomes of interest. To advance knowledge in this area, we 1) assessed the strength of existing scientific evidence linking wildfire mitigation treatments with societal outcomes and 2) measured the importance of this evidence to watershed partnerships in the western US. To address objective one, we created a systematic evidence map to identify the most common wildfire mitigation treatment and societal outcome relationships reported. From the more than 100 studies examined, we found that the most commonly studied linkages were related to the impacts of thinning on infrastructure and timber. To answer objective two, we surveyed 38 professionals affiliated with organizations involved in eight watershed partnerships in the western US. We asked about the relative importance and strength of evidence linking wildfire treatments to societal outcomes for their watershed partnership, and used this information to create an importance-strength analysis and gap analysis. We found that most linkages were considered important to these organizations, and that the biggest gap identified was for evidence linking mulching to water quality or quantity outcomes. Forest and wildfire specialists perceived a larger need for additional evidence generation than other professional groups. Jointly, the results from this study point to areas of evidence generation important for watershed partnerships and other organizations involved in wildfire mitigation, and suggest a need to more thoroughly disseminate information about existing evidence to this new group of stakeholders investing in wildfire risk mitigation., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The boreal forests of Alberta have extensive networks of legacy seismic exploration lines that have been linked to the decline of boreal woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) populations throughout the region. In order to improve habitat quality for caribou, energy companies are investing significant resources in the restoration of many of these seismic lines in key areas, however, frequent large and intense wildfires may compromise the effectiveness of these conservation measures. To minimize the wildfire risk, managers need to know the likelihood of wildfire and the effectiveness of mitigation measures. We undertook a wildfire risk assessment across the Cold Lake caribou range where we used the Burn-P3 model to determine: a) burn probability; b) wildfire risk to restored seismic line areas; and c) the effectiveness of mitigation measures. The burn probability of the landscape was highly heterogeneous, and recent large burns and some waterbodies provided "shields" that reduced burn probability on their leeward sides. We designed mitigation scenarios to mimic the shielding effect of waterbodies and large recent burns by modeling the effects of increase suppression activity and fuel conversion within intensive management zones upwind of the resources to be protected. We found that these intensive management zones reduced the burn probability and wildfire hazard in the restored habitat areas but the effect declined rapidly as distance from the treatment zones increased. If land managers want to minimize the risk of losing their investments in caribou conservation to wildfire, it would be preferable to have mitigation measures spatially targeted closer to the conservation areas. Furthermore, it would be advisable to have redundancy in any conservation measures and wildfire-risk mitigations to ensure that losses due to wildfire on one area do not jeopardize all conservation projects within the landscape., (Crown Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

We provide the wildland urban interface (WUI) map of the autonomous community of Catalonia (Northeastern Spain). The map encompasses an area of some 3.21 million ha and is presented as a 150-m resolution raster dataset. Individual housing location, structure density and vegetation cover data were used to spatially assess in detail the interface, intermix and dispersed rural WUI communities with a geographical information system. Most WUI areas concentrate in the coastal belt where suburban sprawl has occurred nearby or within unmanaged forests. This geospatial information data provides an approximation of residential housing potential for loss given a wildfire, and represents a valuable contribution to assist landscape and urban planning in the region.

A small but growing number of watershed investment programs in the western United States focus on wildfire risk reduction to municipal water supplies. This paper used return on investment (ROI) analysis to quantify how the amounts and placement of fuel treatment interventions would reduce sediment loading to the Strontia Springs Reservoir in the Upper South Platte River watershed southwest of Denver, Colorado following an extreme fire event. We simulated various extents of fuel mitigation activities under two placement strategies: (a) a strategic treatment prioritization map and (b) accessibility. Potential fire behavior was modeled under each extent and scenario to determine the impact on fire severity, and this was used to estimate expected change in post-fire erosion due to treatments. We found a positive ROI after large storm events when fire mitigation treatments were placed in priority areas with diminishing marginal returns after treating >50-80% of the forested area. While our ROI results should not be used prescriptively they do show that, conditional on severe fire occurrence and precipitation, investments in the Upper South Platte could feasibly lead to positive financial returns based on the reduced costs of dredging sediment from the reservoir. While our analysis showed positive ROI focusing only on post-fire erosion mitigation, it is important to consider multiple benefits in future ROI calculations and increase monitoring and evaluation of these benefits of wildfire fuel reduction investments for different site conditions and climates., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Fire is widely used as a traditional habitat management tool in Scotland, but wildfires pose a significant and growing threat. The financial costs of fighting wildfires are significant and severe wildfires can have substantial environmental impacts. Due to the intermittent occurrence of severe fire seasons, Scotland, and the UK as a whole, remain somewhat unprepared. Scotland currently lacks any form of Fire Danger Rating system that could inform managers and the Fire and Rescue Services (FRS) of periods when there is a risk of increased of fire activity. We aimed evaluate the potential to use outputs from the Canadian Fire Weather Index system (FWI system) to forecast periods of increased fire risk and the potential for ignitions to turn into large wildfires. We collated four and a half years of wildfire data from the Scottish FRS and examined patterns in wildfire occurrence within different regions, seasons, between urban and rural locations and according to FWI system outputs. We used a variety of techniques, including Mahalanobis distances, percentile analysis and Thiel-Sen regression, to scope the best performing FWI system codes and indices. Logistic regression showed significant differences in fire activity between regions, seasons and between urban and rural locations. The Fine Fuel Moisture Code and the Initial Spread Index did a tolerable job of modelling the probability of fire occurrence but further research on fuel moisture dynamics may provide substantial improvements. Overall our results suggest it would be prudent to ready resources and avoid managed burning when FFMC > 75 and/or ISI > 2., Competing Interests: G. Matt Davies is an Academic Editor for PeerJ.

One of the immediate challenges of wildfire management concerns threats to human safety and property in residential areas adjacent to non-cultivated vegetation. One approach for relieving this problem is to increase human community 'adaptiveness' to deal with the risk and reality of fire in a variety of landscapes. The challenge in creating 'fire-adapted communities' (FACs) is the great diversity in character and make-up of populations at risk from wildfire. This paper outlines a recently developed categorization scheme for Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) communities based on a larger conceptual approach for understanding how social diversity is likely to influence the creation of FACs. The WUI categorization scheme situates four community archetypes on a continuum that recognizes dynamic change in human community functioning. We use results from the WUI classification scheme to outline key characteristics associated with each archetype and results from recent case studies to demonstrate the diversity across WUI communities. Differences among key characteristics of local social context will likely result in the need for different adaptation strategies to wildfire. While the WUI archetypes described here may not be broadly applicable to other parts of the world, we argue that the conceptual approach and strategies for systematically documenting local influences on wildfire adaptation have potential for broad application.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'., (© 2016 The Author(s).)

Severe wildfires are an intermittent problem in England. The paper presents the first analysis of wildfire policy, showing its halting evolution over two decades. First efforts to coordinate wildfire management came from local fire operation groups, where stakeholders such as fire services, land owners and amenity groups shared knowledge and equipment to tackle the problem. A variety of structures and informal management solutions emerged in response to local needs. Knowledge of wildfire accumulated within regional and national wildfire forums and academic networks. Only later did the need for central emergency planning and the response to climate change produce a national policy response. Fire statistics have allowed wildfires to be spatially evidenced on a national scale only since 2009. National awareness of wildfire was spurred by the 2011 fire season, and the high-impact Swinley Forest fire, which threatened critical infrastructure and communities within 50 miles of London. Severe wildfire was included in the National Risk Register for the first time in 2013. Cross-sector approaches to wildfire proved difficult as government responsibility is fragmented along the hazard chain. Stakeholders such as the Forestry Commission pioneered good practice in adaptive land management to build fire resilience into UK forests. The grass-roots evolution of participatory solutions has also been a key enabling process. A coordinated policy is now needed to identify best practice and to promote understanding of the role of fire in the ecosystem.This article is part of a themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'., (© 2016 The Author(s).)

Substantial investments in fuel management activities on national forests in the western US are part of a national strategy to reduce human and ecological losses from catastrophic wildfire and create fire resilient landscapes. Prioritizing these investments within and among national forests remains a challenge, partly because a comprehensive assessment that establishes the current wildfire risk and exposure does not exist, making it difficult to identify national priorities and target specific areas for fuel management. To gain a broader understanding of wildfire exposure in the national forest system, we analyzed an array of simulated and empirical data on wildfire activity and fuel treatment investments on the 82 western US national forests. We first summarized recent fire data to examine variation among the Forests in ignition frequency and burned area in relation to investments in fuel reduction treatments. We then used simulation modeling to analyze fine-scale spatial variation in burn probability and intensity. We also estimated the probability of a mega-fire event on each of the Forests, and the transmission of fires ignited on national forests to the surrounding urban interface. The analysis showed a good correspondence between recent area burned and predictions from the simulation models. The modeling also illustrated the magnitude of the variation in both burn probability and intensity among and within Forests. Simulated burn probabilities in most instances were lower than historical, reflecting fire exclusion on many national forests. Simulated wildfire transmission from national forests to the urban interface was highly variable among the Forests. We discuss how the results of the study can be used to prioritize investments in hazardous fuel reduction within a comprehensive multi-scale risk management framework., (Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Knowledge of fire behaviour is of key importance in forest management. In the present study, we analysed the spatial structure of forest fire with spatial point pattern analysis and inference techniques recently developed in the Spatstat package of R. Wildfires have been the primary threat to Galician forests in recent years. The district of Fonsagrada-Ancares is one of the most seriously affected by fire in the region and, therefore, the central focus of the study. Our main goal was to determine the spatial distribution of ignition points to model and predict fire occurrence. These data are of great value in establishing enhanced fire prevention and fire fighting plans. We found that the spatial distribution of wildfires is not random and that fire occurrence may depend on ownership conflicts. We also found positive interaction between small and large fires and spatial independence between wildfires in consecutive years., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)