Fire$, or the economics of wildfires: State of play and new contributions
Section snippets
Towards economic guidelines including the global south
Fire has become the flagship sign of the Anthropocene's deleterious effects on our planet. As we are writing these lines (September 2021), western North America, Mediterranean countries, Finland, and northern Russia are still experiencing record-breaking fire seasons. These events come as part of a multi-year streak of wildfire-caused disasters, with social, economic, and environmental consequences that are yet to be fully studied and understood (Duane et al., 2021; Tedim et al., 2018). While
Contributions to this special issue
Kim, Rodrigues, and Robinne (2021, this issue) offer a critical review of the economic drivers of global fire activity. They used the DPSIR problem-structuring method to synthesized our current knowledge of global economic factors enabling variable levels of fire activity across the world, their systemic linkages, as well as their economic consequences. They recommend, in particular, the development of new indicators that will better measure adaptation and mitigation efforts, with an emphasis
Key insights from this special issue
The key insight from the papers presented herein is the diversity of local fire contexts across the world, thereby reiterating the inadequacy of a one-size-fits-all approach to wildfire disaster risk reduction (Moore, 2019). Fire risks, indeed, tend to be seen differently depending where one lives (Kim et al., 2021, this issue). However, collective actions for fire disaster reduction are possible with active engagement of all stakeholders—a prerequisite to good risk governance—prevention,
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
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