Assessing the implementation of the “Safe Villages” program for wildfire mitigation, in three regions of Portugal

After the extreme wildfire events occurred in Portugal in 2017, which burned about 500.000 hectares of land and killed more than 100 people, several initiatives were established aiming to improve the resilience and safety of communities, among which the programs "Safe Villages” (SV) and “Safe People" (SP), coordinated by the Portuguese Civil Protection (ANEPC). The present study aimed to identify the territorial and social characteristics of the villages where the SV program is being implemented. For this study, a database was built with the location of the SV already implemented in three different regions: i) Algarve, the municipalities of Alcoutim, Monchique, São Brás de Alportel; ii) Pinhal Interior, the municipalities of Alvaiázere, Figueiró dos Vinhos and Oliveira do Hospital; iii) Caramulo mountain region, the municipalities of Tondela and Mortágua. The location of the villages where the SV program is implemented was obtained via the overlap of a point representing each SV with the corresponding built-up area. The analysis was focused on the surrounding area of each village and a buffer of 100 m was drawn, as defined by law (DL 82/2021). For each protective buffer, the following parameters were calculated: percentage of critical area (high and very high structural hazard); percentage of wildland area (forest-shrubland-herbaceous); percentage of slopes above 20°; the number of times burned between 1975 and 2021; and the population density within the built-up area. Preliminary results show that, in total, 166 SV were implemented in 6 municipalities, while 2 municipalities do not have any SV implemented, showing that the implementation of the program differs largely between municipalities and regions. The characteristics of the surrounding area of the SV also vary; in Algarve, 97% of SV have 75% of the buffer with critical area, whereas in Pinhal Interior and Caramulo, there are 89% and 78%, respectively. The SV with the highest population density is in the Caramulo region with 58.6 hab/ha, then the Pinhal Interior with 56.9 hab/ha and lastly the Algarve region with 44.9 hab/ha. The municipality of Alcoutim has the highest implementation of SV (84 villages), although the maximum critical area found in their surroundings is only 18%, in one village, and in 19% of the villages, no critical area is found. These results indicate that the implementation of the SV program does not depend only on the physical factors of the territory, but also on the involvement of the population, namely the existence of a volunteer Safety Officer. This person must know the local context, existing structures at the local level and the actions required in case a wildfire is expected. The efficiency of this program and the protection of local communities can be improved by combining different criteria in selecting the villages, such as the proportion of critical area and population density.

This work was funded by FCT, I.P.: JLZ in the framework of the project People&Fire [PCIF/AGT/0136/2017], AG and BB in the scope of PhD projects [2020.07651.BD], [2022.12095.BD], SO under the contract ‘2020.03873.CEECIND′.