Distinguishing between mitigation and adaptation as wildfire prevention actions

Abstract

There is actually a broad consensus over the need to shift from fire suppression to fire prevention strategies. To inform policies that effectively promote this shift, we distinguish between actions aimed at more fire-resilient landscapes and those focused on the protection of people, i.e., wildfire mitigation and adaptation (WM&A), respectively. With the goal of discussing the usefulness of this distinction and identifying local factors and external resources that promote preventive actions, we developed an analysis of collective WM&A actions across 116 parishes in a wildfire-prone region in Portugal, Pinhal Interior. Two principal component analyses were used to explore relationships between variables expressing collective WM&A actions. Random forest was used to model how those actions are related to local factors (land use/land cover, population, institutions) and external resources for wildfire prevention. Our results showed that collective mitigation and adaptation responses to wildfire are independent, in coherence with their distinct goals, actors involved, and policy domains. Mitigation through owners’ collaboration proved to be strongly related to policy funding, local economic dynamism and demographic vitality, unlike community adaptation. In fact, adaptation responses from the local governments and the very few existing residents’ collaboratives are very incipient. We conclude, on one hand, that mitigation and adaptation actions are currently supported by two unequally consolidated policy domains and, on the other hand, that both domains are equally underfunded, namely because of the difficulties in expanding owner collaboratives beyond favorable local conditions, i.e., in socioeconomically depressed regions.