Human perception of fire hazard in wildland urban interface areas: a Portuguese survey analysis of spot fires

Abstract

Nowadays, wildfires are the most devastating natural hazard in Portugal with the highest number of victims and mortality of both operational agents and civilians. During the yearly Wildfire Season, which is determined by law from 15th of May until 15th of October, extra efforts are carried out by the civil protection through dedicated financial and human resources. In the recent years, most of the available resources were employed with their highest capacities in Portugal to control wildland fires. However, still, a high number of fires escape first attach and results in large fires (>100 ha). On the years 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2017 there is temporal variances appeared in the recorded ignitions, where high ignitions recorded during the spring and some of them developed in large and deadly wildfires like the fires ignited in 17th of June 2017 in the Centre of Portugal with 65 mortalities. In the autumn of the same year as well, 2017, large fires were ignited in 15th of October 2017 with 47 mortalities. In 2015, the Institute for Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF) recorded a total of 15851 occurrences, the National Republican Guard investigated 76% of those and identified 47% of them occurred due to negligent human behaviour. 89% of these occurrences are due to leftover burnings. With such a high number of anthropogenic causes, there is a need arises to evaluate the human perception of wildfires hazards, particularly in Wildland-Urban Interfaces (WUI). The evaluation will assist in reducing the occurrences due to negligent behaviours, which is the aim of this study in addition to highlighting the needed awareness actions based on that perception. As a methodology, we defined territories in Mainland Portugal recently affected by wildfires; then we characterised them based on human and physical aspects. A survey with 40 questions was generated. We divided the survey into four sections according to the purpose of the questions, which are sociographic characterisation; perception of the participant regarding the wildfire hazard; the impact of wildfire in the area of the participant; and finally, the participant suggestion of mitigation and prevention measures. The query was pre-tested first by selecting a small population group formed of 30 residents, which is in Algeriz, located in the district of Aveiro. As some preliminary results, a pre-test showed that 85.2% of the sample addressed wildfires as the most significant natural hazard impacting his/her life, followed by floods. 3.7% of the participants reported that they suffered from housing damage due to wildfires To complete our understanding of the people perception of wildfire hazards, this survey will be extended to several other territories of Portugal Mainland, and analyse the patterns of answers.