Abstract ID: 3.10726 | Accepted as Talk | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA

Wildfire is an emerging risk for parts of central and northern Europe, including the European Alps. This has been demonstrated through recent wildfire events in this region that challenged authorities and emergency services. Although large catastrophic events are still relatively rare, this is subject to change since climate change is going to increase the days of fire weather in the future. Managing the wildfire risk in the wildland-urban interface may be particularly challenging due to the low risk perception, the lack of experience of the affected communities and the lack of empirical data from past events. Nevertheless, focusing on vulnerability is certainly the key to disaster risk reduction in this respect. Vulnerability assessment indicates hotspots that require intervention in order to avoid negative consequences from natural hazards (in this case wildfire) and can support decision making and the effective allocation of resources. We present herein research results and tools from two projects, national (REVEAL) and European (FIREPRIME), focusing on the physical vulnerability of buildings (residential and industrial) and infrastructure to wildfire as well as the development of tools for prevention and preparedness for communities located in the WUI in mountain areas. In more detail, an indicator-based approach has been developed for the vulnerability assessment of different elements at risk and an application for mobile phones that can assist homeowners to make the right decisions in order to minimize potential damage to their building has been created. In both projects, stakeholders (authorities, firefighters, policy makers etc.) had a decisive role and were involved in the co-creation of methods and tools.