Wildfires have long been considered as a dynamic ecological factor and an effective agricultural and landscape management tool, but more recently they are increasingly seen as a hazard, which has motivated governments to develop spatio-temporal datasets and to produce risk and prognostic maps. A key factor in this respect is to study the spatial and temporal distribution of wildfires and understand its relationships with the surrounding socio-economic, environmental and climatological factors.
In recent years, innovative algorithms and methodologies have been developed for the analysis of spatially distributed natural hazards and ongoing phenomena such as wildfires. Considering the fast growing availability of high quality digital geo-referenced databases, it is important to develop and promote methods and new tools capable of easily take them into account, especially for large scale analysis. Convert the available datasets into meaningful and valuable information is the new challenge.
This session will bring together wildfire hazard scientists and researchers of various geo-disciplines, economists, managers and people responsible for territorial and urban defense and planning policies. The goal is to improve the understanding of the fire regime and discuss new technologies, methods and strategies to mitigate the disastrous effects of wildfires.
In this context, this session will examine empirical studies, new and innovative technologies, theories, models and strategies for wildfire research, especially to identify and characterize the patterns of spatial and temporal variability of wildfires. Therefore, investigation on the relationships between wildfires and predisposing anthropogenic, environmental and climatological factors are also considered.

Research topics include, but are not limited to:
• pre- and post-fire assessment: fire incidence mapping and variability, fire severity and damage (vegetation composition, decrease in forests, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, alteration of landscape patterns and ecosystem functioning), including fire-planning and risk management
• development of methodology, based on expert knowledge or data driven, for the recognition, modelling and prediction of structured patterns in wildfires
• fire spread models, ranging from case studies to long-term climatological assessments
• long-term trend patterns: relation between wildfires and global changes (e.g., climate, land use/land cover, socioeconomic)
• fire impacts on the environment, in particular on the atmosphere, human health and natural/anthropogenic environment
• post-fire vegetation recovery and vegetation phenology

Both Oral and Poster presentations are very much encouraged, as we plan to have both lively oral and poster sessions.

Wildfire is a global phenomenon responsible in each summer for tremendous environmental, social and economic losses. In the last two years, many lives were lost during the fires occurred in Portugal, Greece and California. The conjunction of land abandonment, long drought periods, flammable monocultures, lack of forest management and urban development planning, resulted in an unprecedented destruction. This phenomenon have become a persistent threat worldwide, and this risk may increase in the future due to the combination of future fire-prone climate, together with the recent trends of afforestation, land abandonment and fire suppression.
A reflection focused in these variables is essential to understand the recurrence of these extreme fires, and the consequent fatalities that occurred in Portugal, California and Greece. These high-severity mega-fires have also an important impact on the environment as a result of the reduction of vegetation cover and high volatilization of nutrients. Despite the fact that several ecosystems such as the Mediterranean have a high resilience to fires, the high wildfire recurrence is reducing their capacity for recuperation, contributing importantly to land degradation.
The aim of this session is to join researchers that study fire effects on the ecosystems, from prevention to suppression, wildfire modelling, climate change impacts on fire and post-wildfire impacts, either by means of laboratory, field experiments, or numerical modelling. It is time for scientists to join their strengths to give accurate answers to prevent and mitigate the effects of wildfires.