Wildland-urban interface analyses for fire management planning

In Southern Europe wildfires involving settlements are becoming more and more frequent because of the increasing number of houses and infrastructures located within and adjacent areas prone to wildfires. This phenomenon has become a real challenge for wildland fire protection managers and public policy makers. The work presented describes some results of a research on fire management in wildland-urban interface (W-UI) areas that is being carried out within the WARM (Wildland-Urban Area Fire Risk Management) Project, funded by the European Commission. A study area of about 100 km2 has been selected, according to its relevance to the W-UI problem, nearby Turin, the main city of Piemonte Region, situated in the Northwestern part of Italy. The characterization of the bio-geophysical environment of the study area through spatial analysis has been realized. Very high resolution satellite images (Quickbird) of the study area have been acquired and image analysis procedures with object oriented image classification approach are being realized. Landscape analysis methods derived from Landscape Ecology are being employed, selecting specific indicators to be applied to the WUI conditions for the description of the wildfire environment and trying to obtain analytical tools to optimize planning processes.