Enhancing high-resolution fuel maps in WUI areas : El Pont de Vilomara fire, a case study

Abstract

A precise understanding of the spatial distribution of fuels and buildings at high resolution is crucial for analysing, modelling, and predicting fire behaviour in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas. However, the challenging and costly nature of estimating and mapping forest fuel attributes presents obstacles to global efforts in creating high-resolution fuel maps. This work addresses these limitations by proposing a strategy to generate high-resolution fuel maps based on the 1 km resolution FirEUrisk fuel map and transforming it into an enriched 20 m resolution fuel map, incorporating constructions and water masks. For simulation purposes, the forest fire spread simulator FARSITE has been used. The proposed enhanced downscaling strategy has been tested on a forest fire that occurred in July 2022 in the village El Pont de Vilomara in Catalonia (north-east of Spain). This work highlights how detailed mapping can significantly improve the precision of forest fire simulations, especially in WUI areas. The higher resolution fuel map provides a more accurate representation of fire behavior (SC 0.8 vs. 0.7) while maintaining the same fire detection (POD) as the unchanged fuel map but significantly reducing false alarms (lower FAR). This improvement contributes to proactive fire prevention strategies and ensures an immediate and effective emergency response.