Understanding future changes to fires in southern Europe and their impacts on the wildland-urban interface

Abstract

Abstract Southern Europe is a highly fire-prone region where extreme fires have often disastrous consequences on both structures and people. Human activities and severe weather conditions favouring ignitions and propagation have always been the drivers of such fires but anthropogenic climate change alongside the extension of wildland-urban interface (WUI) that concentrates both assets and fire ignitions have the compounding effect of exacerbating fire risk. WUI are currently not adequately prepared to sustain events whose frequency and intensity are foreseen to increase in the future as shown during the extreme fires that occurred recently in Euro-Mediterranean countries. This work presents the context of WUI fires in the Euro-Mediterranean region, their driving forces and their impacts on society, with insights from three recent catastrophic fires that drew much attention. In this context, we propose a conceptual framework for understanding the WUI issue assessing the implications for fire risk and providing some guidance to mitigate this risk, updated management strategies as well as comments about gaps in our current knowledge and how we might address this problem in the future. A successful approach to reduce the fire risk in the future will require building resilient landscapes and communities better prepared to face these extreme fire events in which WUI population, forest managers, land planners, civil protection, and policy-makers need to work together to improve the safety and resilience of these fire-prone areas.