Validating a landscape metric to map fire exposure to hazardous fuels in Portugal

Sidra Ijaz Khan (), Maria Conceição Colaço, Ana Catarina Sequeira, Francisco Castro Rego and Jennifer L. Beverly
Additional contact information
Sidra Ijaz Khan: University of Lisbon
Maria Conceição Colaço: University of Lisbon
Ana Catarina Sequeira: University of Lisbon
Francisco Castro Rego: University of Lisbon
Jennifer L. Beverly: University of Alberta

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2025, vol. 121, issue 14, No 5, 16273-16295

Abstract: Abstract Assessing wildfire hazard at the landscape level in Portugal with low-cost and time-saving methods is necessary to guide land and fire managers and protect communities at risk. This study applied a landscape metric developed in Canada to map wildfire exposure in Mainland Portugal between 1995 and 2018. The wildfire exposure metric was computed and validated by examining exposure within subsequently burned areas over five years: 1995, 2007, 2010, 2015, and 2018. Landscape fire exposure was computed by the proportion of neighborhood cells in a 100 m resolution grid that include hazardous fuel types. The resultant exposure metric analyzes the amount of land cover type in the area of a site that will either aid or prevent fire spread. The distribution of exposure levels remained relatively stable over time, decreasing just 0.5% from 1995 to 2018. Approximately 80% of burned areas occurred in sites with substantial exposure (i.e., ≥ 80%). This exposure metric, originally developed in Canada, aligned well with wildfires modulated by Portuguese climate and vegetation, leading to its successful validation. This study uses a simple, time-saving method to show high and low wildfire exposure areas, allowing managers to plan mitigation efforts at different scales, with potential applications for other countries facing large wildfire events.

Keywords: Landscape fire exposure; Hazard; Wildfire; Burned areas; Risk assessment; Fuel management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-025-07424-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:121:y:2025:i:14:d:10.1007_s11069-025-07424-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-025-07424-8

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().