Assessing wildfire exposure in the Wildland-Urban Interface area of the mountains of central Argentina

ARGAÑARAZ, JUAN PABLO; GAVIER PIZARRO, GREGORIO; BAR-MASSADA, AVI; BELLIS, LAURA; RADELOFF, VOLKER C.; SCAVUZZO, CARLOS MARCELO

JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

ACADEMIC PRESS LTD-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2017 vol. 196 p. 499 - 510

0301-4797

Wildfires are a major threat to people and property in Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) communities worldwide, but while the patterns of the WUI in North America, Europe and Oceania have been studied before, this is not the case in Latin America. Our goals were to a) map WUI areas in central Argentina, and b) assess wildfire exposure for WUI communities in relation to historic fires, with special emphasis on large fires and estimated burn probability based on an empirical model. We mapped the WUI in the mountains of central Argentina (810,000 ha), after digitizing the location of 276,700 buildings and deriving vegetation maps from satellite imagery. The areas where houses and wildland vegetation intermingle were classified as Intermix WUI (housing density > 6.17 hu/km2 and wildland vegetation cover > 50%), and the areas where wildland vegetation abuts settlements were classified as Interface WUI (housing density > 6.17 hu/km2, wildland vegetation cover