Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts

Tedim, Fantina; Leone, Vittorio; Amraoui, Malik; Bouillon, Christophe; Coughlan, Michael R.; Delogu, Giuseppe M.; Fernandes, Paulo M.; Ferreira, Carmen; McCaffrey, Sarah; McGee, Tara K.; Parente, Joana; Paton, Douglas; Pereira, Mário G.; Ribeiro, Luís M.; Viegas, Domingos X.; Xanthopoulos, Gavriil

doi:10.3390/fire1010009

Submit to this Journal Review for this Journal Edit a Special Issue

Article Menu

...

Open AccessConcept Paper

Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts

^1,2,*,

^3,†,

⁴

⁵

⁶

^7,†

⁴

⁸

⁹,

⁴,

²,

^4,10

¹¹

¹¹ and

¹²

Centre for Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning, CEGOT, Geography Department, Faculty of Arts, University of Porto, Porto 4150-564, Portugal

Engineering Health Science & Environment, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory 0909, Australia

Department of Crop Systems, Forestry and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Basilicata, Potenza 85100, Italy

⁴

Centre for Research and Technology of Agro-Environment and Biological Sciences, CITAB, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Vila Real 5001-801, Portugal

⁵

National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture, IRSTEA, RECOVER Research Unit, Aix-en-Provence 13100, France

⁶

Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA

⁷

Regional Forest Corps of Sardinia, Cagliari 09131, Italy

⁸

USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins CO 80526-2098, USA

⁹

Faculty of Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9, Canada

¹⁰

IDL, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon 1749-016, Portugal

¹¹

Centre for Forest Fire Research (CEIF), ADAI–LAETA, University of Coimbra, Coimbra 3030-289, Portugal

¹²

Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems, Hellenic Agricultural Organization "Demeter", Athens 11528, Greece

Show full affiliation list

Hide full affiliation list

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

^†

Retired

Fire 2018, 1(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/fire1010009

Received: 15 January 2018 / Revised: 10 February 2018 / Accepted: 14 February 2018 / Published: 25 February 2018

View Full-Text Download PDF

Browse Figures

Citation Export

Abstract

Every year worldwide some extraordinary wildfires occur, overwhelming suppression capabilities, causing substantial damages, and often resulting in fatalities. Given their increasing frequency, there is a debate about how to address these wildfires with significant social impacts, but there is no agreement upon terminology to describe them. The concept of extreme wildfire event (EWE) has emerged to bring some coherence on this kind of events. It is increasingly used, often as a synonym of other terms related to wildfires of high intensity and size, but its definition remains elusive. The goal of this paper is to go beyond drawing on distinct disciplinary perspectives to develop a holistic view of EWE as a social-ecological phenomenon. Based on literature review and using a transdisciplinary approach, this paper proposes a definition of EWE as a process and an outcome. Considering the lack of a consistent “scale of gravity” to leverage extreme wildfire events such as in natural hazards (e.g., tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes) we present a proposal of wildfire classification with seven categories based on measurable fire spread and behavior parameters and suppression difficulty. The categories 5 to 7 are labeled as EWE. View Full-Text

Keywords: control capacity; disaster; extreme wildfire event (EWE); large fire; megafire; social-ecological; transdisciplinary

▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Tedim, F.; Leone, V.; Amraoui, M.; Bouillon, C.; Coughlan, M.R.; Delogu, G.M.; Fernandes, P.M.; Ferreira, C.; McCaffrey, S.; McGee, T.K.; Parente, J.; Paton, D.; Pereira, M.G.; Ribeiro, L.M.; Viegas, D.X.; Xanthopoulos, G. Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts. Fire 2018, 1, 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire1010009

AMA Style

Tedim F, Leone V, Amraoui M, Bouillon C, Coughlan MR, Delogu GM, Fernandes PM, Ferreira C, McCaffrey S, McGee TK, Parente J, Paton D, Pereira MG, Ribeiro LM, Viegas DX, Xanthopoulos G. Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts. Fire. 2018; 1(1):9. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire1010009

Chicago/Turabian Style

Tedim, Fantina, Vittorio Leone, Malik Amraoui, Christophe Bouillon, Michael R. Coughlan, Giuseppe M. Delogu, Paulo M. Fernandes, Carmen Ferreira, Sarah McCaffrey, Tara K. McGee, Joana Parente, Douglas Paton, Mário G. Pereira, Luís M. Ribeiro, Domingos X. Viegas, and Gavriil Xanthopoulos. 2018. "Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts" Fire 1, no. 1: 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire1010009

Find Other Styles

Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Abstract views Pdf views Html views

Article Menu

Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts

Abstract

Share and Cite

Article Metrics

Article Access Statistics

Article Access Map by Country/Region

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI