Mitigazione del pericolo incendi nelle aree di interfaccia urbano/foresta: un esempio di selvicoltura preventiva in Sardegna

Abstract: Wildfires at the wildland/urban interface (WUI) areas have recently taken on alarming dimensions, and most of the catastrophic wildfires in recent years are of this type (Greece 2003 and 2007, Italy, 2007; Australia, 2009; Spain 2003, 2007, 2012). Contrastingly to forest stands, where fuel has to be managed also taking into consideration stand conservation and improvement purposes, in WUI fuel management has the imperative goal of the protection of property and people. The present paper deals with the implementation of a methodology for assessing fire hazard in a WUI area in Sardinia, and assess the most appropriate prevention silvicultural practices to be applied to mitigate the hazard (i.e., the probability of fire occurrence and the difficulty to extinguish it, based on the current vegetation characteristics). We applied a method aimed at defining a “danger value” for each fuel model found in the study area, and derived the silvicultural practices to be applied for the reduction of fuel and the associated risk. The effects of silvicultural prevention were assessed for each fuel model in the study area in terms of flame length and fire intensity for the pre-, during and post phases.