A global outlook on increasing wildfire risk:current policy situation and future pathways

International audienc

Assessing Rebuilding Incentives for Homeowners Impacted by the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire

Wildfires have become a leading concern throughout the increasing residential communities of wildland-urban interface areas. Decades of fire suppression and climate change shifts have caused the fire regimes within California to become more frequent and severe. The shifting patterns in landscape to accommodate more housing has caused billions of dollars in wildfire destructions. Yet homeowners who have been impacted continue to rebuild within the same wildfire perimeter. To help homeowners and communities who are still in the process of rebuilding within the Santa Cruz Mountains, which was impacted by the 2020 CZU Lightening Complex Fire, this research aimed to assess which rebuilding incentives would be most beneficial to their recovery process. This was done by through a comparative analysis of incentives offered to homeowners who rebuilt following the 2017 “Wine Country Wildfires” in Sonoma and Napa County. These are two study areas in a similar region with differences in demographics, landscapes, and rebuild stages. From there a literature review was conducted to also understand the role of insurance companies during immediate recovery following a wildfire and how homeowners can increase their participation within Firewise programs. Preliminary results concluded that a variety of incentives offered different resources to homeowners, insurer-initiated homeowner policy non-renewals are increasing, and homeowner participation within fire resiliency programs depends on wildfire history, means, and local agency led interactions. The following recommendations were made: 1) agencies should offer “well rounded” incentive programs to impacted homeowners, 1a) incentive programs should be led by local or regional agencies, 1b) a regional incentive database should be created, 2) provide insurance credits for individual and community risk mitigation, 2a) create an insurance natural disaster statewide response team, 3) lead fire resiliency programs locally and transparently to increase homeowner participation, and finally 3a) create a community cost share program for wildfire mitigation. These recommendations will help homeowners who are rebuilding from wildfire impact and create communities that are more resilient to wildfires

An Agent-Based Model of Mediterranean Agricultural Land-Use/Cover Change for Examining Wildfire Risk

Humans have a long history of activity in Mediterranean Basin landscapes. Spatial heterogeneity in these landscapes hinders our understanding about the impacts of changes in human activity on ecological processes, such as wildfire. The use of spatially-explicit models that simulate processes at fine scales should aid the investigation of spatial patterns at the broader, landscape scale. Here, we present an agent-based model of agricultural land-use decision-making to examine the importance of land tenure and land use on future land cover. The model considers two 'types' of land-use decision-making agent with differing perspectives; 'commercial' agents that are perfectly economically rational, and 'traditional' agents that represent part-time or 'traditional' farmers that manage their land because of its cultural, rather than economic, value. The structure of the model is described and results are presented for various scenarios of initial landscape configuration. Land-use/cover maps produced by the model are used to examine how wildfire risk changes for each scenario. Results indicate that land tenure configuration influences trajectories of land use change. However, simulations for various initial land-use configurations and compositions converge to similar states when land-tenure structure is held constant. For the scenarios considered, mean wildfire risk increases relative to the observed landscape. Increases in wildfire risk are not spatially uniform however, varying according to the composition and configuration of land use types. These unexpected spatial variations in wildfire risk highlight the advantages of using a spatially-explicit agent-based model of land use/cover change.Land Use/Cover Change, Land Tenure, Wildfire, Mediterranean-Type Ecosystem, Agriculture, Spatial Heterogeneity

Firesafe: Designing for Fire-Resilient Communities in the American West

The perception that wildfires are completely preventable has caused many structures and communities to be built in locations that will inevitably experience an uncontrollable fire event, risking human lives and infrastructure. Modification of built environments into fire-adapted communities has been explored in this thesis, through multiple strategies. Central to this analysis is the idea that sustainable human developments could adopt a form of biomimicry and indigenous design informed by the adaptions of plants, animals, and native groups that endure and even thrive with regular cycles of fire. This possibility has been assessed through the scope of fire adaptation strategies available to architects, builders, and urban planners. Design decisions including the strategic placement of buildings in relation to topography, wind, vegetation type, and fuel loads has been considered. Additionally, other mechanisms for adaptation have been assessed, such as fire-retardant building materials, building form, landscaping, and the density of built form on the scale of single homes, and broader communities. The thesis identifies a typical building site, the adjacent community, the potential threats to landscape and buildings posed by wildfire, and then explores design approaches aimed at improving fire adaptability. These factors have been considered and assessed on a qualitative level and offer new recommendations for building within fire zones. These design ideas and principles can then be applied to a variety of landscapes wherein the wildfire is inevitable, thereby exploring how fire-adapted communities may be built to sustain wildfires through a myriad of methods within a range of regions

towards integrating risk dimensions

Costa, H., de Rigo, D., Libertà, G., Houston Durrant, T., San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., 2020. European wildfire danger and vulnerability in a changing climate: towards integrating risk dimensions. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 59 pp. ISBN:978-92-76-16898-0 , https://doi.org/10.2760/46951This research focuses on European wildfire danger and vulnerability under a changing climate, to support the integration of some main climate-related components of wildfire risk. A detailed assessment is proposed on the varying frequency of fire danger classes (from the relatively safer to the extreme danger conditions) under changing climate. On a given area, the co-occurrence of an increasing number of high-danger days, and the presence of people potentially exposed to wildfires, and living within the more vulnerable interface between settlements and wildland, indicates an increasing fire risk. Focusing on the population potentially exposed to wildfires in Europe, the interface between urban areas and wildland (WUI) is here identified as an indicator of where the people are more vulnerable, both due to the easier ignition of areas where people can have an easier access to wildland, and due to a passive consequence of the increased risk. Once a given fire is ignited close to the WUI, neighbour locations are also threatened. In addition, summary indices of potential vegetation vulnerability are introduced to account not only for single species vulnerability, but rather for the combined multifaceted impacts on vegetation structure and composition following the definition of ecological domains by FAO and estimating their potential shift under different climate-change scenarios. An integrated assessment of the findings supports a recommendation to focus on the Mediterranean areas of Europe characterised by higher potential vegetation and population vulnerability, and higher potential fire danger. In addition, attention may be necessary to specific mountain areas (even outside the Mediterranean) especially on lower elevation areas where forests are dominant and more vulnerable to a rapidly changing ecology, and land abandonment may worsen the vegetation fuel and the WUI interface for the remaining population.publishersversionpublishe

Integrating geospatial wildfire models to delineate landscape management zones and inform decision-making in Mediterranean areas

Despite the abundant firefighting resources deployed to reinforce the fire exclusion policy, extreme events continue to cause substantial losses in Mediterranean regions. These catastrophic wildfires question the merely-reactive response, while science-based decision-making advocates for a paradigm shift towards a long-term solution to coexist with fire. Comprehensive management solutions integrate multiple efforts to minimize the number of escaped wildfires in fire ignition hotspots, restrict large fire spread across the landscape, and prevent losses to valued resources and assets. This study develops a wildfire management zone (WMZ) delineation framework to inform decision-making in fire-prone Mediterranean landscapes. First, we combined modeling outcomes of wildfire occurrence, initial attack success, and wildfire transmission to communities to segment the landscape in WMZ blocks. We assumed the worst-case scenario in terms of fire simultaneity and weather conditions to implement the models. The geospatial outcomes were assembled and classified into four primary archetypes, and we then designated the most suitable risk mitigation strategies for each management unit. The WMZs included (1) comprehensive management, (2) human ignition prevention, (3) intensive fuel management, and (4) fire reintroduction areas. Finally, we downscaled within zones to assign specific management prescriptions to the different areas. The results were presented in a set of cross-scale maps to assist in designing risk management plans and raise social awareness. The methodological framework developed in this study may be valuable to help mitigate risk in fire-prone Mediterranean areas, but also in other regions in which similar total suppression policies fail to reduce catastrophic wildfire losses.This work has been financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, postdoctoral ‘Juan de la Cierva Formación’ research grant (FJCI-2016-31090) awarded by Marcos Rodrigues. The work was partially funded by the projects FirEUrisk “DEVELOPING A HOLISTIC, RISK-WISE STRATEGY FOR EUROPEAN WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT”. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101003890; and CLIMARK “Forest management promotion for climate mitigation through the design of a local market of climatic credits” (LIFE16 CCM/ES/000065)

The dynamics of cork oak systems in Portugal: the role of ecological and land use factors

Vegetation degradation and desertification occur in many semiarid ecosystems worldwide, particularly in the Western Mediterranean Basin. A peculiar semiarid Mediterranean land use system dominates the landscape of southern Portugal where cork oak (Quercus suber) is the main tree species. This system is the result of both ecological and land use dynamics that shaped the landscape for centuries and created a fine-grained mosaic landscape, which includes four main types of vegetation patches: cork oak woodlands (higher tree density), cork oak montados (lower tree density), shrublands and grasslands. Each patch can be conceived as a vegetation state that is reached and maintained in different ways. Transitions between states are triggered often by a combination of human management and climatic circumstances. I hypothesize that cork oak woodlands and shrublands in southern Portugal represent alternative stable states, which change slowly or not at all in the absence of human intervention. Failures in natural regeneration of cork oak trees triggered by grazing pressure and human overexploitation can be the cause of a shift to the alternative stable state of shrublands, especially in very dry conditions. Stable and expanding shrublands may therefore be a sign of land desertification in southern Portugal, representing an irreversible transition. This PhD proposal aims to evaluate if cork oak woodlands and shrublands represent alternative stable states in southern Portugal and what are the ecological and land use mechanisms underlying their resilience and persistence. Overall methodology The study area is located at Serra do Caldeirão, Algarve, southern Portugal. The persistence and dynamics of cork oak woodlands and shrublands, transition probabilities between vegetation states, and correlation between transitions and environmental variables will be analyzed through the observation of aerial photos between 1958 and 2002 for the study area with the help of a GIS (Geographical Information System). Markov matrix analysis and multivariate analysis will be used. Limitations for seedling establishment will be analysed through an experimental design carried out in different vegetation states. Finally, human management, motivations for land use decisions, behaviour towards the cork oak system, and sociological characterization of landowners will be investigated through landowner interviews