Humans not only cause fires, but they are also affected by them, depending on exposure and vulnerability [1] [2]. Frequently, human assets are assessed through monetary values. Fuchs et al. (2019)[3], for instance, estimated the economic value of the exposed buildings and the number of citizens involved in fire danger areas. The KULTURisk Framework[4] used a monetary index to assess people and assets in a given area. However, human assets can also be assessed by their intangible value: cultural and historical heritage, for instance, has a value which cannot be fully monetised, and which is usually strictly related with the identity of a local community, thus affecting its coping capacity. Human assets can also be categorized according to the “capital(s)” they embed (i.e., social, economic, institutional, human, and environmental). Additional aspects related to social capital [5] exploring the relationships between communities, their activities to contain fire ignition and spread and their strengths and relations with the current institutional system are not yet introduced in integrated approaches, giving space for new research along with the consideration of sociological indicators of community vulnerability [6] [7] [8].
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Canadas, M.J., Leal, M., Soares, F., Novais, A., Ribeiro, P.F., Schmidt, L., Delicado, A., Moreira, F., Bergonse, R., Oliveira, S., Madeira, P.M., & Santos, J.L. (2023). Wildfire mitigation and adaptation: Two locally independent actions supported by different policy domains. Land Use Policy, 124, 106444. ↩︎
Oliveira, S., Gonçalves, A., Benali, A., Sá, A., Zêzere, J.L., & Pereira, J.M. (2020). Assessing Risk and Prioritizing Safety Interventions in Human Settlements Affected by Large Wildfires. Forests, 11, 859. ↩︎
Fuchs, R., Alexander, P., Brown, C., Cossar, F., Henry, R.C., & Rounsevell, M. (2019). Why the US–China trade war spells disaster for the Amazon. Nature, 567, 451-454. ↩︎
UNISDR (2009). Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), http://www.unisdr.org/files/7817_UNISDRTerminologyEnglish.pdf. ↩︎
Górriz-Mifsud, E., Burns, M., & Marini Govigli, V. (2019). Civil society engaged in wildfires: Mediterranean forest fire volunteer groupings. Forest policy and economics, 102, 119-129. ↩︎
Andersen, L.M., & Sugg, M.M. (2019). Geographic multi-criteria evaluation and validation: A case study of wildfire vulnerability in Western North Carolina, USA following the 2016 wildfires. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 39, 101123. ↩︎
Palaiologou, P., Ager, A.A., Nielsen-Pincus, M., Evers, C.R., & Day, M.A. (2019). Social vulnerability to large wildfires in the western USA. Landscape and Urban Planning, 189, 99-116. ↩︎
Vallejo-Villalta, I., Rodríguez-Navas, E., & Márquez-Pérez, J. (2019). Mapping Forest Fire Risk at a Local Scale—A Case Study in Andalusia (Spain). Environments, 6, 30. ↩︎