From leaves to landscape: A multiscale approach to assess fire hazard in wildland-urban interface areas

DE TORRES CURTH M., GHERMANDI L., PFISTER G., BISCAYART C. & GONZALEZ S.; BELETZKY N.; DE TORRES CURT M.

JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

ACADEMIC PRESS LTD-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2016 vol. 183 p. 925 - 937

0301-4797

The overlapping zone between urbanization and wildland vegetation, known as the wildland urbaninterface (WUI), is often at high risk of wildfire. Human activities increase the likelihood of wildfires,which can have disastrous consequences for property and land use, and can pose a serious threat to lives.Fire hazard assessments depend strongly on the spatial scale of analysis. We assessed the fire hazard in aWUI area of a Patagonian city by working at three scales: landscape, community and species. Fire is acomplex phenomenon, so we used a large number of variables that correlate a priori with the fire hazard.Consequently, we analyzed environmental variables together with fuel load and leaf flammability variablesand integrated all the information in a fire hazard map with four fire hazard categories. TheNothofagus dombeyi forest had the highest fire hazard while grasslands had the lowest. Our workhighlights the vulnerability of the wildland-urban interface to fire in this region and our suggestedmethodology could be applied in other wildland-urban interface areas. Particularly in high hazard areas,our work could help in spatial delimitation policies, urban planning and development of plans for theprotection of human lives and assets.