Firefighting Approaches and Extreme Wildfires
A special issue of Fire (ISSN 2571-6255). This special issue belongs to the section "Fire Research at the Science–Policy–Practitioner Interface".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2025 | Viewed by 13512
Special Issue Editor
Interests: natural hazards; extreme wildfires; social dimensions of wildfires; resilience assessment; vulnerability assessment; wildfire risk reduction; fire smart territories; wildfire causes; wildfire science-policy interface
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Wildfires are a world problem but the majority of the events remain small and low intensity while extreme wildfire events (high intensity, sudden, chaotic, and rapid progression of flames and spotting activity at high distance from the front) are a scant minority in the total number of fires (about 10%) but are responsible of 90% of losses and damage. Extreme wildfires are set to become more frequent, increasing by around 50% by the end of this century, according to a recent United Nations Report (2022), despite growing wildfire control budgets, improved coordination, better knowledge, equipment and technology, and trained workforce. Although firefighting systems cope quite well with small to medium fires, extreme wildfires are very difficult or impossible to control, since they largely exceed control capacity. In addition, frequent communication difficulties or even their collapse affect the correct use and efficiency of suppression means, strategies, and tactics.
Such a situation can only get worse, and this can happen not only in ill-equipped countries or not sufficiently trained to deal with this emerging problem but in all countries because, under the current technology conditions, control capacity is largely exceeded by extreme wildfires behavior.
This Special Issue aims to explore firefighting approaches and extreme wildfires, giving particular attention but not exclusively to:
- Anatomy of extreme wildfires across the world;
- Conditions favorable to the occurrence of extreme wildfires and prediction models;
- Limits of firefighting activities and efficacy of different firefighting approaches;
- The constraints in the use and efficiency of aerial means;
- Personal safety of firefighters and training of coping skills and team building;
- Evacuation procedures and experiences;
- Firefighters risk perception;
- Firefighting at wildland-urban interface;
- Communities’ awareness, perception, and preparedness to prevent and cope with extreme wildfires;
- Risk and emergency communication;
- Governance models and policies approaches.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome.
Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following: social sciences, forestry science, political sciences, natural sciences.
Prof. Dr. Fantina Tedim
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fire is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- firefighting
- control capacity
- safety
- modelling
- science-policy-practitioner interactions
- prevention
- mitigation
- preparedness
- suppression
- wildfire management
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Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
This Special Issue aims to explore firefighting approaches and extreme wildfires, giving particular attention but not exclusively to:
- Anatomy of extreme wildfires across the world;
- Conditions favorable to the occurrence of extreme wildfires and prediction models;
- Limits of firefighting activities and efficacy of different firefighting approaches;
- The constraints in the use and efficiency of aerial means;
- Personal safety of firefighters and training of coping skills and team building;
- Evacuation procedures and experiences;
- Firefighters risk perception;
- Firefighting at wildland-urban interface;
- Communities’ awareness, perception, and preparedness to prevent and cope with extreme wildfires;
- Risk and emergency communication;
- Governance models and policies approaches.