Climate change is causing an increase in the frequency and intensity of wildfires, demonstrating that our capacity to respond to them is insufficient. Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider wildfire management policies, practices, and decision-support tools, extending beyond emergency measures. This study presents the extension of a GIS-based methodology for fire analysis, providing decision-making support for the implementation of new fire-related policies for road transportation infrastructure. It represents a novel contribution that facilitates the transition towards proactive wildfire policies. The framework is demonstrated to support informed decision-making, addressing both reactive actions, i.e., emergency response, and the evaluation of proactive adaptation measures at a system level. The results suggest that landscape management policies can play an important role in improving the resilience of road networks to wildfires.@en

Factors such as human activity and climate change are contributing to an increase in the frequency and intensity of wildfires. This problem has challenged society's knowledge, response capacity, and resilience, revealing its inadequacy to cope with the new wildfire regime characterized by extreme wildfire events (EWE). Policies on wildfire management mainly focus on suppression and managing emergencies, which may be insufficient to reduce EWE's incidence and cope with its impact. Consequently, there is a lack of tools to support decision-making in wildfire management in other important aspects, such as prevention and protection. This study examines global wildfire policies specifically in the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain), including cross-border policies. A GIS-based tool to evaluate different normal and extreme wildfire management policies is applied to a cross-border case study, paying attention to the impact on critical land-based transport systems. A relevant outcome of the tool application is that suppression must be complemented with other wildfire management strategies in the analyzed area. The gained insights can help stakeholders to improve decision-making in wildfire management to successfully address EWE.

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Wildfires have become a source of concern for society due to the increase in frequency, intensity, and unpredictability. This has caused serious impacts all over the world, even in areas where this type of problem did not occur before. Studies on the adaptation of critical infrastructure have been conducted to reduce the impacts of this type of hazard influenced by climate change. However, there are currently no tools to evaluate adaptation measures and their influence on the resilience of transport infrastructure to wildfires. Therefore, this paper proposes the application of a simplified methodology to assess the priority level in interventions on bridge networks and the effectiveness of different adaptation measures. The methodology is applied to a case study in Portugal. In that sense, the results show that adaptation measures such as changing vegetation management policy and implementing wildfire spread barriers effectively reduce the exposure of bridges. Therefore, this tool can be very useful for stakeholders and practitioners supporting wildfire management in terms of adaptation measures.

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Climate change is leading to a rise in the occurrence and intensity of wildfires, exacerbated by the growing encroachment of communities into the natural environment, posing challenges to our global capacity to respond to wildfires. During wildfire events, road transport infrastructure becomes crucial for the evacuation of people and accessibility to an emergency by first responders. Nevertheless, resilience management of transportation infrastructure affected by wildfires is poorly considered, despite its relevant role and high exposure to wildfires. Therefore, this study proposes a new methodology to estimate the priority level for wildfire preparation by combining exposure and criticality of road transportation infrastructure to wildfire hazards with consideration of different wildfire categories. The analysis is conducted at the system level considering interdependencies and redundancies among infrastructure components and using a geographic information system (GIS) to automate the modelling process and visualization of results. The proposed methodology is applied to a case study in the Leiria region of Portugal, demonstrating its utility in prioritizing economic resources and decision-making for areas requiring preparation. This approach can serve as a resilience-based tool for decision-making, supporting the implementation of effective adaptation strategies to enhance wildfire resilience.@en

Wildfires are becoming more intense and frequent. This problem has tested the knowledge, response capacity, and resilience achieved by society throughout history, making it clear that they are insufficient to face this new wildfire regime. The effectiveness of the related policies mainly focused on fire suppression rather than prevention is increasingly insufficient and questionable. Consequently, there is a clear lack of tools to assess the impact of wildfire preventive actions. Therefore, it is imperative to review wildfire management practices, policies, and the tools used to support decision-making in this regard. This study performs an analysis of wildfire policies applied in the Iberian Peninsula case (Portugal and Spain), including cross-border policies and the role of road transport networks. A novel simplified methodology is included to evaluate different normal and extreme forest fire management policies in road transport infrastructures. The methodology includes different parameters related to wildfires, such as sources of exposure, identification of natural and artificial barriers, and traffic conditions that capture the economic characteristics of the studied area. The information provided by the tool is useful for strategic investment planning, resource prioritization, and evacuation time management. In addition, due to its simplicity of application, it is a useful tool for cross-border areas.@en

The severe effects of extreme wildfire events in recent years have shown that the fire suppression approach is not enough to solve the problem. An alternative to dealing with this issue is to accept the impossibility of eliminating wildfire hazards and focus on preparing systems to be more resilient. However, existing decision-making tools based on resilience present important drawbacks that make them inadequate for this task. This paper proposes a new approach and methodology for the resilience assessment of road traffic networks to wildfires that overcomes the main drawbacks, paying attention to the different functions of the system and the acceptance of a specific loss of performance. The latter is done through the introduction of dynamic thresholds that reflect the different requirements of the system under different wildfire conditions, including normal and extreme fires. The methodology is exemplified for five traffic networks. The results support the relevance of appropriate wildfire management through the adaptation of the natural and built environment to increase the capacity of the traffic networks to cope with wildfires.

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The severe effects of extreme wildfire events in recent years have shown that the fire suppression approach is not enough to solve the problem. An alternative to dealing with this issue is to accept the impossibility of eliminating wildfire hazards and focus on preparing systems to be more resilient. However, existing decision-making tools based on resilience present important drawbacks that make them inadequate for this task. This paper proposes a new approach and methodology for the resilience assessment of road traffic networks to wildfires that overcomes the main drawbacks, paying attention to the different functions of the system and the acceptance of a specific loss of performance. The latter is done through the introduction of dynamic thresholds that reflect the different requirements of the system under different wildfire conditions, including normal and extreme fires. The methodology is exemplified for five traffic networks. The results support the relevance of appropriate wildfire management through the adaptation of the natural and built environment to increase the capacity of the traffic networks to cope with wildfires.@en