Wildfires in the Wildland-Urban Interface: Applied Research for Fire Prevention and Hazard Reduction

The wildland-urban interface (WUI) is defined as housing areas in or surrounded by natural vegetation. WUI fires are a frequent concern in fire-prone ecosystems, fueled by urban expansion into forest areas, climate change, and changes in land use. Its impacts on communities are severe; in the US, the number of homes destroyed by fire per year increased by 300% between 1990-2014. There is a global trend toward the expansion of the WUI, which raises the probability of fires, given that around 90% of ignitions are anthropogenic. Burning large extensions of vegetation releases tons of CO2, generating dangerous feedback with climate change. Warmer and drier conditions in some regions increase the frequency of fires, for example, the fires of 2017-18 in Portugal and Greece and 2019-20 in Australia. Human losses due to WUI fires in the last decades amount to 300 dead in southern Europe and 200 in Australia.

In this Research Topic, we will address the different methodologies to map the WUI around the world and to assess and reduce WUI fire risk and hazard. Our main goal is to contribute to the development of applied research in hazard mitigation and WUI planning and management. Over the last few decades, scientific research has focused on the state of the WUI and WUI fire risk analysis, mainly in the northern hemisphere. Here we aim to promote applied scientific research that optimises fire prevention programs according to its causes. At a local scale, fuel treatments and urban expansion planning are the main tools to reduce WUI fire hazards.

The scope of this Research Topic will be mainly applied, with the intention to cover all aspects of the WUI, its relations to fires, and the strategies to address this problem around the world. These include, but are not limited to:
- WUI mapping and monitoring,
- WUI vulnerability and fire risk assessment,
- Ignitions forming temporal and spatial patterns, topography, climate and its relations with WUI mega fire events,
- Fire hazard evaluation and mapping strategies,
- The relationship between vegetation and WUI fires (including fuel treatments),
- Firebreak planning and maintenance, development of fire-defensible areas around cities and neighbours, priority zone determinations for fuel reduction or urban planning,
- WUI management to build fire resilient communities.

Keywords: Wildland-urban interface, interface fires, global change, wildfire hazard, fuel load, wildfire management, fuel treatments

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.