PICO
High-impact wildfire events in 2025 across the United States, France, Spain, Cyprus, South Korea, Japan, Syria, and Canada resulted in extensive burned areas, mass evacuations, substantial carbon emissions, severe smoke impacts, and loss of life. These events further underline the urgency of strengthening wildfire prevention and risk reduction efforts, from local and structural scales to broader landscape levels. Effective wildfire prevention requires a robust understanding of exposure, vulnerability, and risk in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI).
This session aims to showcase studies, projects, and initiatives addressing wildfire risk and vulnerability assessment, damage analysis, prevention measures, and local adaptation strategies in the WUI. We particularly welcome contributions focusing on participatory approaches, community-based risk reduction, resilience of communities and the built environment, as well as public awareness and education, household and community preparedness, stakeholder engagement, recovery processes, and lessons learned within disaster risk reduction frameworks. We also encourage submissions that critically examine prevailing wildfire management approaches and explore wildfire risk in relation to large-scale land-use change and associated agricultural, nature conservation, and climate mitigation policies. Inter- and transdisciplinary research addressing the social and political dimensions of wildfire risk, and translating scientific knowledge into policy- and action-relevant insights, is especially encouraged.
By sharing experiences, methods, and lessons learned across diverse geographical and socio-environmental contexts, this session aims to foster dialogue on wildfire risk management and support the development of practical, transferable solutions for reducing wildfire impacts in the WUI worldwide.