Land-use change produces dangerously continuous wildfire fuels

Land use and land management shape how vegetation is arranged across a landscape. In some regions, abandonment of grazing and farming closes former open areas. Elsewhere, homogeneous plantations, unmanaged residues or invasive plants create continuous or highly flammable fuel structures.

The resulting continuity can allow fire to spread across ownership boundaries and reach settlements or critical ecosystems. Fragmented ownership and short-term project funding make repeated, landscape-scale management difficult.

This issue concerns hazardous fuel continuity created or sustained by land-use patterns. It does not assume that all vegetation or all dense forest is undesirable.

Sources: FAO Integrated Fire Management and European Environment Agency briefing on fire-resilient forests.