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Forests
Special Issues
Forest Fires: Latest Advances and Perspectives
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Forest Fires: Latest Advances and Perspectives

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Hazards and Risk Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 13 July 2024 | Viewed by 4479

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Gilberto Vaz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Coimbra Polytechnic - ISEC, Rua Pedro Nunes, 3030-199 Coimbra, Portugal
2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Coimbra, ADAI, Rua Luís Reis Santos, Pólo II, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal
Interests: forest fires; fire safety; heat transfer; energy efficiency; renewable energy technologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Jorge R. N. Raposo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Coimbra Polytechnic - ISEC, Rua Pedro Nunes, 3030-199 Coimbra, Portugal
2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Coimbra, ADAI, Rua Luís Reis Santos, Pólo II, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal
Interests: forest fires; merging fires; fire safety; fire technology; asset maintenance
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Michele Salis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of BioEconomy (CNR-IBE), Traversa La Crucca 3, 07100 Sassari, Sardinia, Italy
Interests: forest fires; fire exposure and risk; fire spread and behavior modeling; fire regime; fire-prone Mediterranean areas
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Wildland fires are a significant disturbance agent and can cause major losses to ecosystems, farms, anthropic values, and human lives. In recent years, several works have highlighted that wildland fires with extreme spread and behavior have become increasingly large and devastating and that fire-prone areas are expanding to new areas. This can be attributed to the frequency increase in dangerous environmental conditions able to sustain the occurrence of devastating wildfires or even mega fires, which are associated with an overall increase in fire danger. The impact of climate change on wildfire activity shows that fire severity and burned area will increase dramatically in the near future, causing significant environmental, human, and economic losses if adaptation measures are not implemented. In recent decades, much work has been developed to try to mitigate the problem of forest fires. However, the annual burned area has continued to increase and spread to new geographical locations, which shows that the problem persists and is becoming worse. Forest management teams, fire operational people, and decision-makers need the support of cutting-edge research in the field of forest fire modeling and forest management to make the best decisions. Moreover, climate change and extreme climatic events increase the complexity of the fire/forest decision-making problem. The research outputs can be used to solve this type of problems using model tools, exact procedures, and rules.

In this Special Issue, we are looking for the latest advances and perspectives in the area of wildland fires, including fire spread modeling, fire exposure and risk analysis, fuel management strategies, forest ecology, threats posed by extreme wildfires, post-fire recovery, fire preparedness, emergency management, and new technologies applied to ecosystems and fires. We encourage studies from all fields, including experimental or numerical models, experimental or field studies, real case studies, decision-making rules, or software tools.

Dr. Gilberto Vaz
Dr. Jorge R. N. Raposo
Dr. Michele Salis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • forest fires
  • forest fuels
  • fire ecology
  • weather and climate
  • extreme wildfires
  • wildfire management
  • wildfire modeling
  • decision support systems
  • forest and fire technologies

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

24 pages, 15701 KiB  
Article
Robots for Forest Maintenance
by Tiago Gameiro, Tiago Pereira, Carlos Viegas, Francesco Di Giorgio and NM Fonseca Ferreira
Forests 2024, 15(2), 381; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15020381 - 18 Feb 2024
Viewed by 995
Abstract
Forest fires are becoming increasingly common, and they are devastating, fueled by the effects of global warming, such as a dryer climate, dryer vegetation, and higher temperatures. Vegetation management through selective removal is a preventive measure which creates discontinuities that will facilitate fire [...] Read more.
Forest fires are becoming increasingly common, and they are devastating, fueled by the effects of global warming, such as a dryer climate, dryer vegetation, and higher temperatures. Vegetation management through selective removal is a preventive measure which creates discontinuities that will facilitate fire containment and reduce its intensity and rate of spread. However, such a method requires vast amounts of biomass fuels to be removed, over large areas, which can only be achieved through mechanized means, such as through using forestry mulching machines. This dangerous job is also highly dependent on skilled workers, making it an ideal case for novel autonomous robotic systems. This article presents the development of a universal perception, control, and navigation system for forestry machines. The selection of hardware (sensors and controllers) and data-integration and -navigation algorithms are central components of this integrated system development. Sensor fusion methods, operating using ROS, allow the distributed interconnection of all sensors and actuators. The results highlight the system’s robustness when applied to the mulching machine, ensuring navigational and operational accuracy in forestry operations. This novel technological solution enhances the efficiency of forest maintenance while reducing the risk exposure to forestry workers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Fires: Latest Advances and Perspectives)
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15 pages, 27675 KiB  
Article
Water Reservoir Placement Methodology for Forest Firefighting: A Case Study of Valparaíso, Chile
by Miguel Alfaro, Pavlo Santander, Guillermo Fuertes, Rodrigo Ternero and Manuel Vargas
Forests 2024, 15(1), 201; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15010201 - 19 Jan 2024
Viewed by 834
Abstract
Climate change has a significant impact on generating forest fires. These fires damage property, interrupt productive processes, reduce employment sources, and generate direct economic losses. Also, fires contribute to climate change, resulting in a negative cycle. Therefore, the effective management of forest fires [...] Read more.
Climate change has a significant impact on generating forest fires. These fires damage property, interrupt productive processes, reduce employment sources, and generate direct economic losses. Also, fires contribute to climate change, resulting in a negative cycle. Therefore, the effective management of forest fires is of vital importance. This research focuses on the combat and mitigation phase of forest fires, with special emphasis on using helicopters to transport water from nearby reservoirs to the fire site. The location of these reservoirs is key since a greater distance traveled by helicopter means a longer delay in water transport, which favors the spread of the fire. For this reason, this research proposes an optimization model to determine the optimal location of these reservoirs in a territory. The proposed model is illustrated with a case study of the region of Valparaiso, demonstrating its usefulness for management and decision making when locating reservoirs for firefighting. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Fires: Latest Advances and Perspectives)
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23 pages, 23971 KiB  
Article
Assessing Wildfire Hazard in the Wildland–Urban Interfaces (WUIs) of Central Portugal
by Adélia N. Nunes, Albano Figueiredo, Carlos Pinto and Luciano Lourenço
Forests 2023, 14(6), 1106; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14061106 - 26 May 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2195
Abstract
In Portugal, the rapid growth in housing in and near wildland–urban interfaces (WUIs) increases the wildfire risk to lives and structures. The goal of our study was to assess wildfire hazard in the Central Region of Portugal and in the contact areas of [...] Read more.
In Portugal, the rapid growth in housing in and near wildland–urban interfaces (WUIs) increases the wildfire risk to lives and structures. The goal of our study was to assess wildfire hazard in the Central Region of Portugal and in the contact areas of the 60,373 km of WUIs existing in the study area. The degree to which wildfire is a hazard to the landscape and the different urban interfaces areas was assessed using the spatial arrangement of land use/land cover (LULC), topography, and historical incidence of burnt area. The results show that in more than half of the Central Region territory, the wildfire hazard is high or very high; however, most WUIs are in contact with low or very low hazard classes in a total of 87% of the segments. The LULC analysis in the different wildfire hazard classes in WUI contact areas shows that agricultural crops are predominant in the low and very low hazard classes, while in the very high and high hazard classes shrub communities, coniferous and scrub forests dominate, respectively. These results can assist in designing appropriate prevention measures and improving the effectiveness of fire prevention. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Forest Fires: Latest Advances and Perspectives)
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: Climate Change and the impact on the Fine Forest Fuels Moisture Content
Authors: Gilberto Vaz; Jorge Raposo
Affiliation: Coimbra Polytechnic - ISEC. Rua Pedro Nunes, 3030-199 Coimbra, Portugal. Univ Coimbra, ADAI, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rua Luís Reis Santos, Pólo II, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal.

Title: Integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems in wildland fire operations.
Authors: André Paixão, Jorge Raposo, Luis Coelho Silva, Gilberto Vaz, Davi Lucas, André Rodrigues, Luis Reis
Affiliation: Coimbra Polytechnic - ISEC, Coimbra, Portugal

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