Analysis of forest fire fatalities in Southern Europe: Spain, Portugal, Greece and Sardinia (Italy)

Molina-Terrén, Domingo M.; Xanthopoulos, Gavriil; Diakakis, Michalis; Ribeiro, Luís Mário; Caballero, David; Delogu, Giuseppe; Viegas, Domingos X.; Silva, Carlos Alberto; Cardíl, Adrián

doi:10.1071/wf18004

Cited by 125 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The fear of not being able to control devastating fires is increasing among fire services. Over time, the operational capacity of fire services has been overwhelmed by extreme fire behaviors in repeated events (Molina-Terrén et al 2019). The response has always been an increase in efforts, causing stress and reactive approaches to the situation (CTI 2017(CTI , 2018Palaiologou et al 2018).…”

Section: Mediterranean Europe Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empowering strategic decision-making for wildfire management: avoiding the fear trap and creating a resilient landscape

Castellnou¹,

Prat‐Guitart

Arilla³

et al. 2019

fire ecol

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In recent years, fire services in Mediterranean Europe have been overwhelmed by extreme wildfire behavior. As a consequence, fire management has moved to defensive strategies with a focus only on the known risks (the fear trap). In this region, wildfires can change rapidly, increasing the uncertainty and causing complex operational scenarios that impact society right from the initial hours. To address this challenge, proactive approaches are an alternative to defensive and reactive strategies. We propose a methodology that integrates the uncertainty of decisions and the cost of each opportunity into the strategic decision-making process. The methodology takes into account values such as fire-fighting safety, organizational resilience, landscape resilience, and social values. Details of the methods and principles used to develop and implement a creative decision-making process that empower the fireline are provided. A tool that segregates the landscape into polygons of fire potential and defines the connectivity between those polygons is used. Two examples of operational implementation of this methodology are presented (2014 Tivissa Fire and 2015 Odena Fire). These methods facilitate the analysis of possible scenarios of resolution and the costs of the opportunities that help build resilient emergency response systems and prevent their collapse. Moreover, they help explain the risk to society and involve citizens in the decision-making process. These methods are based on the experience and lessons learned by European incident commanders, managers, and researchers collected during the last decade.

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Section: Mediterranean Europe Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empowering strategic decision-making for wildfire management: avoiding the fear trap and creating a resilient landscape

Castellnou¹,

Prat‐Guitart

Arilla³

et al. 2019

fire ecol

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“…Their findings suggest that people tend to have an increased fear towards phenomena or hazards that seem uncontrollable, rare/unfamiliar, or catastrophic when they occur, which is the case for major earthquakes in the region. Catastrophic wildfires have most probably affected respondents' opinion given also their numerous victims [10,73]. The tragic death toll of wildfires was accompanied by damages in infrastructure and the environment and has caused public outrage [74].…”

Section: Threat Perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ranking deriving from risk perception does not reflect necessarily objective risk impact indicators. For instance, fatalities caused by floods are much higher than those caused by wildfires in the region [9,10,73,75,76]. Moreover, flood is the most common climate-related phenomenon provoking damages in the region [77,78].…”

Section: Threat Perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hydrogeological and other climate-related hazards, such as floods, storms, mass movement, and wildfires, cause extensive damages [1][2][3] and a noteworthy number of fatalities around the world [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Between 1988 and 2017, they accounted for US$2245 billion or 77% of the total damage costs amongst all types of disasters [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hydrogeological and Climatological Risks Perception in a Multi-Hazard Environment: The Case of Greece

Papagiannaki

Diakakis

Kotroni

et al. 2019

Water

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Climate-related hazards, such as wildfires and hydrogeological phenomena, cause extensive damages and casualties around the world. Despite the recent advances and technologies for risk mitigation, it is acknowledged that public risk perception is a critical factor for these tools to succeed. Greece and the broader Eastern Mediterranean is an area where, despite the diversity of natural disasters, there is a lack of understanding of the hazard types that people are most concerned with and how they measure against other groups of hazards (i.e., geophysical). This work uses an online survey targeting Greek people, aiming to provide a better understanding of their perception of different natural hazards. Statistical results show that people consider climate-related hazards less dangerous and likely to occur than earthquakes, which occur often as zero-impact events. Laymen may thus underestimate certain risks, which may inhibit appropriate preparation. Disaster experience was found to increase threat perceptions and to motivate preparedness. However, in what concerns climate-related hazards, the effect of experience may fade out over time. Awareness activities were found to associate with higher emergency response efficacy. Males exhibit lower risk perception and higher coping appraisals. However, prioritization of risks is almost identical between genders. Implications for risk management are discussed.

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“…In the particular case of Spain, the 2017 warm season was more severe than usual; that year, Spain was the second most affected country in the European Union in terms of both burned area and number of fires, just behind Portugal [17]. The large forest fires (LFFs) that occurred in Galicia (Spain) and Portugal were analyzed in Molina-Terrén et al [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Event-Based Integrated Assessment of Environmental Variables and Wildfire Severity through Sentinel-2 Data

Picos

Alonso

Bastos

et al. 2019

Forests

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To optimize suppression, restoration, and prevention plans against wildfire, postfire assessment is a key input. Since little research has been carried out on applying Sentinel-2 imagery through an integrated approach to evaluate how environmental parameters affect fire severity, this work aims to fill this gap. A set of large forest fires that occurred in northwest Spain during extreme weather conditions were adopted as a case study. Sentinel-2 information was used to build the fire severity map and to evaluate the relation between it and a set of its driving factors: land cover, aspect, slope, proximity to the nearest stream, and fire recurrence. The cover types most affected by fire were scrubland, rocky areas, and Eucalyptus. The presence of streams was identified as a major cause of the reduced severity of fires in broadleaves. The occurrence of fires in the past is linked to the severity of fires, depending on the land cover. This research aims to help fire researchers, authority managers, and policy makers distinguish the conditions under which the damage by fire is minimized and optimize the resources allocated to restoration and future fire suppression.

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Analysis of forest fire fatalities in Southern Europe: Spain, Portugal, Greece and Sardinia (Italy)

Cited by 125 publications

References 32 publications

Empowering strategic decision-making for wildfire management: avoiding the fear trap and creating a resilient landscape

Empowering strategic decision-making for wildfire management: avoiding the fear trap and creating a resilient landscape

Hydrogeological and Climatological Risks Perception in a Multi-Hazard Environment: The Case of Greece

Event-Based Integrated Assessment of Environmental Variables and Wildfire Severity through Sentinel-2 Data

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