Learning from Forest Fires: Towards a Blueprint for Wildfire Management

Dear Colleagues,

In an era of escalating climate change, intensifying drought conditions, and expanding human encroachment into wildland–urban interfaces, forest fires have evolved from natural ecological processes into devastating events with profound environmental, economic, and social impacts. Understanding the complexities surrounding forest fires provides an opportunity to develop effective strategies for mitigating their impact, protecting ecosystems, and ensuring community safety. This Special Issue in Forests addresses the critical need to transform reactive firefighting into proactive, evidence-based wildfire management strategies. This topic is crucial because wildfires are becoming increasingly frequent and severe, as evidenced by recent events in California, Australia, and Europe, which have caused billions in damages, loss of biodiversity, and human fatalities. Learning from past forest fires is essential for improving fire behavior understanding, refining predictive models, identifying causal factors, and enhancing ecosystem recovery insights, all of which lead to better community preparedness. By focusing on lessons from past fires, we can develop a "blueprint" for sustainable management that mitigates risks, enhances ecosystem resilience, and safeguards communities, ultimately reducing the cycle of destruction and recovery. Key lessons include implementing effective land management practices, engaging local communities in preparedness efforts, creating firebreaks, and improving emergency response coordination while informing better public policy for fire management. Achieving firefighter safety encompasses adequate training, equipment provision, risk assessments, mental health support, and leveraging technological innovations. Settlements can enhance safety by applying insights gained from past fires through stringent building codes, comprehensive evacuation planning, community education on wildfire risks, infrastructure resilience investments, and encouraging engagement with insurance providers for recovery planning. This Special Issue welcomes contributions such as original research articles, review papers, case studies, and policy analyses that focus on these aspects of wildfire management, emphasizing innovative approaches and empirical studies that can inform future practices and policies. We welcome a diverse range of submissions that advance understanding and application of wildfire management. Welcomed contributions include the following:

• Original Research Articles: Empirical studies analyzing data from specific fire events, such as fire behavior modeling, post-fire ecological recovery, or socioeconomic impacts.
• Review Papers: Comprehensive syntheses of historical fire regimes, management policies, or technological innovations in fire suppression and prevention.
• Case Studies: In-depth examinations of past wildfires (e.g., the 2018 Camp Fire or 2020 Australian bushfires), highlighting successes, failures, and transferable lessons.
• Methodological Papers: Developments in tools such as remote sensing, AI-driven predictive modeling, or community-based risk assessment frameworks.
• Perspective and Opinion Pieces: Forward-looking discussions on policy reforms, Indigenous knowledge integration, or interdisciplinary approaches to wildfire resilience.

All submissions should emphasize practical implications for building a blueprint for future wildfire management.

Dr. Palaiologos Palaiologou
Guest Editor

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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. Forests 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 2600 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.

• wildfire management
• community resilience
• fire behavior
• environmental recovery and restoration
• firefighting safety
• forest fire lessons