Towards wildfire risk reduction goals and targets for Europe – Opportunities and challenges

The impact of wildfires is increasing worldwide. The root causes of these effects are manifold, encompassing among others climate change and the accumulation of fuels and increasing settlements in wildland-urban interfaces (WUI). Reports and initiatives to better understand and govern these developments have been launched and call for more integrated approaches to wildfire risk management, including the use of targets or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). However, despite some examples such as Portugal, wildfire risk management targets are still mainly lacking in Europe. This is surprising since they find wider application in the U.S. and are also more widely applied for flooding in Europe. This perspective hence takes a closer look at the use of targets in reducing disaster risk for different hazards worldwide and reflects about the opportunities and challenges for wildfire risk reduction targets for Europe. It concludes with some suggestions for the application of wildfire risk reduction targets for Europe.