Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Wildfire Exposure in Mediterranean Areas

Lozano, Olga M.; Salis, Michele; Ager, Alan A.; Arca, Bachisio; Alcasena, Fermín; Monteiro, A.; Finney, Mark A.; Giudice, Liliana Del; Scoccimarro, Enrico; Spano, Donatella

doi:10.1111/risa.12739

Cited by 79 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 79 publications

(104 reference statements)

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“…There are major potential shortfalls because these ratings do not consider risk from large fires, the potential exposure created by these events or the impact of wildfire intensity on ecosystems or human communities in a detailed spatial context (Miller and Ager 2013). The integration of the proposed methodology at a regional level in the national risk assessment plan can provide quantitative metrics of exposure and vulnerability, similar to other studies in Italy (Salis et al 2015;Lozano et al 2017) and France (Ager et al 2014). To develop a new national strategy, it is necessary to understand the differences and similarities of both wildfire behaviour and biophysical context across the country's different regions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Using transboundary wildfire exposure assessments to improve fire management programs: a case study in Greece

Palaiologou

Ager

Evers

et al. 2018

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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Numerous catastrophic wildfires in Greece have demonstrated that relying on fire suppression as the primary risk-management strategy is inadequate and that existing wildfire-risk governance needs to be re-examined. In this research, we used simulation modelling to assess the spatial scale of wildfire exposure to communities and cultural monuments in Chalkidiki, Greece. The study area typifies many areas in Greece in terms of fire regimes, ownership patterns and fire-risk mitigation. Fire-transmission networks were built to quantify connectivity among land tenures and populated places. We found that agricultural and unmanaged wildlands are key land categories that transmit fire exposure to other land tenures. In addition, fires ignited within protected lands and community boundaries are major sources of structure exposure. Important cultural monuments in the study area had fairly low exposure but higher potential for fires with moderate to high intensity. The results show how the spatial diversity of vegetation and fuels, in combination with vegetation management practices on private and public tracts of land, contribute to transboundary risk. We use the results to motivate a discussion of integrating transboundary risk assessments to improve the current wildfire-risk rating system and begin the process of reforming risk governance in Greece.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Using transboundary wildfire exposure assessments to improve fire management programs: a case study in Greece

Palaiologou

Ager

Evers

et al. 2018

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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“…, Lozano et al. ). Additional parameters required by FlamMap are energy release component (ERC), wind speed, wind direction, and fuel moisture of live and dead fuels.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Flam-Map simulates fire growth (fire perimeters) and fire intensity (flame length) over a landscape that results from converting polygon-based IDU information on surface fuels, canopy fuels, and topography into an ASCII grid with 90-m spatial resolution. It relies on the minimum travel time algorithm, a mathematical model that is the basis for fire growth and behavior calculations in several wildfire modeling applications used in the USA and elsewhere (Finney et al 2011, Alcasena et al 2015, Oliveira et al 2016, Lozano et al 2017. Additional parameters required by Flam-Map are energy release component (ERC), wind speed, wind direction, and fuel moisture of live and dead fuels.…”

Section: Wildfire Submodelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wildfires managed for restoration enhance ecological resilience

et al. 2018

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Expanding the footprint of natural fire has been proposed as one potential solution to increase the pace of forest restoration programs in fire‐adapted landscapes of the western USA. However, studies that examine the long‐term socio‐ecological trade‐offs of expanding natural fire to reduce wildfire risk and create fire resilient landscapes are lacking. We used the model Envision to examine the outcomes that might result from increased area burned by what we call “restoration” wildfire in a landscape where the ecological benefits of wildfire are known, but the need to suppress high‐risk fires that threaten human values is also evident. Our study area, in the eastern Cascades of Oregon, USA, includes the Deschutes National Forest where large tracts of mixed conifer forest structure are outside the historical range of variation and characterized by multi‐layer, closed‐canopy stands. We found that simulation of one restoration wildfire per year in addition to high‐risk wildfires in the regular fire season and over the course of 50 yr resulted in a 23% increase in total area burned, but the same probability of fire‐on‐fire interactions. This translated into 0.3% of the national forest burned by restoration wildfire per year and had a small impact in area burned by high‐risk fires albeit more likely in extreme fire years. Smoke production doubled in the restoration scenario relative to the scenario without restoration wildfire, but still resulted in minimal smoke production in most years. Restoration fires burned with low‐ to mixed‐severity and led to a steady reduction in canopy cover and increase in resilient forest structure in dry‐forest types. Habitat for the federally protected northern spotted owl declined with the inclusion of restoration fire, while habitat for species that use recently burned forest stands (e.g., black‐backed woodpecker) increased. Our results suggest that restoration wildfire can improve forest resilience and contribute to restoration efforts in fire‐adapted forests, but there are trade‐offs (wildlife habitat, smoke, area burned in fire‐sensitive forest types), and the level of restoration fire use we simulated is unlikely to have a significant impact on the occurrence of high‐severity wildfires.

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“…Due to climate change and development, wildfire emissions are expected to increase an additional 19–101% in California through 2100 (Hurteau et al, 2014). Increasing numbers of wildfires and acreage burned is also expected to increase across the western United States and Europe (Abatzoglou and Williams, 2016; Lozano et al, 2016). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wildfire smoke exposure and human health: Significant gaps in research for a growing public health issue

Black

Tesfaigzi

Bassein

et al. 2017

Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology

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162

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Understanding the effect of wildfire smoke exposure on human health represents a unique interdisciplinary challenge to the scientific community. Population health studies indicate that wildfire smoke is a risk to human health and increases the healthcare burden of smoke-impacted areas. However, wildfire smoke composition is complex and dynamic, making characterization and modeling difficult. Furthermore, current efforts to study the effect of wildfire smoke are limited by availability of air quality measures and inconsistent air quality reporting among researchers. To help address these issues, we conducted a substantive review of wildfire smoke effects on population health, wildfire smoke exposure in occupational health, and experimental wood smoke exposure. Our goal was to evaluate the current literature on wildfire smoke and highlight important gaps in research. In particular we emphasize long-term health effects of wildfire smoke, recovery following wildfire smoke exposure, and health consequences of exposure in children.

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Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Wildfire Exposure in Mediterranean Areas

Cited by 79 publications

References 79 publications

Using transboundary wildfire exposure assessments to improve fire management programs: a case study in Greece

Using transboundary wildfire exposure assessments to improve fire management programs: a case study in Greece

Wildfires managed for restoration enhance ecological resilience

Wildfire smoke exposure and human health: Significant gaps in research for a growing public health issue

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