Wildland-Urban Interface and Risk of Wildfires

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (23 September 2022) | Viewed by 5042

Special Issue Editors

FLUC-Department of Geography and Tourism, RISCOS and CEGOT—Centre of Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning, University of Coimbra, 3004-530 Coimbra, Portugal
Interests: wildfire risk analysis; wildland-urban interface; land use/land cover change; exposition and vulnerability; risk perception
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
ISISE—Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering, University of Coimbra, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal
Interests: steel and composite structures; steel structures; cold-formed steel; structural stability; plug-and-play; fire; modular construction; pre-fabrication; industrialization; design for disassembly and reuse
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Centre of Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning, University of Coimbra, 3004-530 Coimbra, Portugal
Interests: species distribution; ecological modelling; vegetation dynamics; biogeography; climate change

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are inviting submissions to the Special Issue on Wildland-Urban Interface and Risk of Wildfires. The wildland-urban interface (WUI), defined as the area where houses are in or near wildland vegetation, is the area where wildfires pose the greatest risk to people and goods due to the proximity of flammable vegetation. The WUI fire risks are inherently a multi/interdisciplinary problem that requires a holistic approach, from a technological point of view to the management of the built-environment and forest, evacuation, socio-economic impacts and health, climate changes and sustainability, education and raising awareness and public policies, promoting the adoption of sounding protocols/regulations amongst all civil protection bodies and civil society.

In this Special Issue, we invite submissions exploring:

  • Risk assessment in the Wildland-Urban Interfaces (WUI)
  • Wildfire exposure and vulnerability in WUI
  • Risk perception and communication
  • Modelling of Forest Fires and its impact on the WUI
  • Impacts of Climate changes on WUI wildfires
  • Fire safety engineering and resilience of the built environment
  • Socio-economic impacts and recovering after a natural disaster
  • Public policies and legislation for safe and resilient WUI areas

Prof. Dr. Adélia N. Nunes
Dr. Hélder David da Silva Craveiro
Dr. Albano Figueiredo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 2996 KiB  
Article
Rural Fires—Causes of Human Losses in the 2017 Fires in Portugal
by Andreia Rodrigues, Aldina Santiago, Luís Laím, Domingos Xavier Viegas and José Luís Zêzere
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(24), 12561; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app122412561 - 08 Dec 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1477
Abstract
Extreme wildfires are increasingly rising to intense and uncontrolled fires, with dimension and destructive potentials that are greater than what has been seen and dealt with. The hazards posed by these fires increase significantly when they approach the wild–urban interface, with relevant environmental [...] Read more.
Extreme wildfires are increasingly rising to intense and uncontrolled fires, with dimension and destructive potentials that are greater than what has been seen and dealt with. The hazards posed by these fires increase significantly when they approach the wild–urban interface, with relevant environmental and socio-economic consequences. The 2009 Victorian bushfires and the 2017 Portugal wildfires are powerful reminders, and they have demonstrated the need to better understand why mitigation plans have failed to protect the community in these events and to improve community resilience. The year 2017 is a milestone in the history of wildfires in Portugal, not only because of the vast burned area but also due to the high number of fatalities. The two occurrences were at different times (June and October) but were geographically close (region of centre of Portugal). A total of 117 deaths occurred in both events and 92% of the victims were in wild–urban interface areas. This paper analyses and discusses the characteristics and causes of death of the victims of these two events: age, place of death, distance from place of death to place of residence and last-minute choices to aim to understand the actions that people took in the face of the approaching fire, which led to their death. In both cases, most people died fleeing the fire without any information from the competent authorities. In the end, it is possible to identify risk factors that lead to the death of civilians due to wildfires, such as the increase in demand for rurality by young people from big cities with no previous contact with wildfires; on the other hand, there is the ageing of the population residing in forest areas, who were previously physically and structurally prepared to deal with fires and are currently no longer able to. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wildland-Urban Interface and Risk of Wildfires)
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14 pages, 3170 KiB  
Article
Uncovering Vegetation Changes in the Urban–Rural Interface through Semi-Automatic Methods
by Bruno Barbosa, Jorge Rocha, Hugo Costa and Mário Caetano
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(5), 2294; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12052294 - 22 Feb 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1670
Abstract
Forest fires are considered by Portuguese civil protection as one of the most serious natural disasters due to their frequency and extent. To address the problem, the Fire Forest Defense System establishes the implementation of fuel management bands to aid firefighting. The aim [...] Read more.
Forest fires are considered by Portuguese civil protection as one of the most serious natural disasters due to their frequency and extent. To address the problem, the Fire Forest Defense System establishes the implementation of fuel management bands to aid firefighting. The aim of this study was to develop a model capable of identifying vegetation removal in the urban–rural interface defined by law for fuel management actions. The model uses normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) of Sentinel-2 images time series and is based on the Welch t-test to find statistically significant differences between (i) the value of the NDVI in the pixel; (ii) the mean of the NDVI in the pixels of the same land cover type in a radius of 500 m; and (iii) their difference. The model identifies a change when the t-test points for a significant difference of the NDVI value in the ‘pixel’ as comparted to the ‘difference’ but not the ‘mean’. We use a moving window limited to 60 days before and after the analysed date to reduce the phenological variations of vegetation. The model was applied in five municipalities of Portugal and the results are promising to identify the places where the management of fuel bands was not carried out. This indicates which model could be used to assist in the verification of the annual management of the fuel bands defined in the law. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wildland-Urban Interface and Risk of Wildfires)
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