How much danger are the cities in? – DW – 01/09/2025
Wildfires burning out of control around Los Angeles have made the California city the latest in a growing line of urban centers facing the reality of deadly fires.
Driven by strong winds, the fire spread through densely populated urban areas, killing five people and destroying at least a thousand buildings.
As global temperatures are rising, scenes of fires are becoming more frequent in urban areas. Last summer, black smoke billowed behind Athens’ iconic Parthenon temple as flames spread across the city’s suburbs.
This image was a clear example of how the increasing wildfires around the world are not limited to remote rural areas, but are having a widespread impact in cities as well.
That same summer, a large fire also broke out among the trees on the Monte Mario hill in the center of Rome. From Halifax in Canada to Cape Town in South Africa, Nanyo city in Japan and now Los Angeles, wildfires have forced thousands of urban residents from their homes over the past months.
Are cities becoming more vulnerable to wildfires?
Climate change is causing temperatures to rise and the duration of drought to increase, creating drier fire-prone conditions that cause wildfires to burn faster, longer and more fiercely.
Wildfires are burning twice as many trees as two decades ago, according to recent data From the World Resources Institute, a global research nonprofit.
The growth of cities around the world is increasing their sensitivity to these blasts.
“They are expanding, and this is especially the phenomenon that increases the risk of wildfires affecting people and homes,” Julie Berkmans, an expert in climate risk assessment at the European Environment Agency, told DW.
Globally, areas where the ‘wild urban interface’ (WUI) – where buildings and wild vegetation meet – are expanding, is increasing fire risk.
A study last year The US National Center for Atmospheric Research showed that WUI increased by 24% between 2001–2020, the largest expansion in Africa. It is estimated that this has led to a 23% increase in the number of wildfires in these areas and a 35% increase in the area burned. two thirds of people The homes of people most exposed to wildfires around the world are in these areas where cities and towns meet forest.
Alexander Held, senior expert at the European Forest Institute, said footage from Athens last summer clearly shows how easily fires can spread in these areas. “You see a lot of the wildland and urban interface, where bushland actually grows into gardens, and then even in gardens, there’s a lot of flammable material that makes it very easy to light a fire right up to the house.”
He told DW that increasing rural abandonment, especially in the Mediterranean, is also increasing the risk of wildfires, because it means more land mass is left uncultivated. He says that fires that could have been detected earlier and controlled immediately are reaching closer to cities.
And wildfire flames don’t need to reach city limits to affect urban residents, as their smoke can travel hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles. In 2022, New York City experienced one of the worst recorded toxic air pollution levels due to Canadian wildfires.
Are some cities more at risk than others?
Alexandra Tyukvina, a geographer at the University of Maryland in the US, explains that cities located in places like California and the Mediterranean Sea that have dry, subtropical climates are particularly at risk of wildfires.
“These are really vulnerable because they have seen drought in the past years and in general it seems that the risk of fire is higher in the three places, both historically and in the presence of climate change,” Tyukavina told DW.
The fire broke out in Athens after Greece experienced its wettest winter and hottest June and July on record.
Sprawling suburbs in places like the US are particularly exposed to fire spread, Tyukvina said, while Japan is an example of a country with a completely different type of urban planning. “The cities there are more dense and the natural areas are isolated from the cities. So there is less of this wildland-urban interface area.”
According to this, Europe and North America are the regions with the highest share of wildfire area within WUI regions. Research till 2022 Published in the journal Nature.
What can cities do to better protect themselves?
Berkmans says more funding is needed for early warning systems, more guidance on forest management as well as increased public awareness, since most wildfires are started by human activity.
According to EU spokesman Balázs Ujvari, about 700 firefighters, two firefighting airplanes and two helicopters were mobilized from across the EU to assist local Greek forces in fighting the fire in Athens.
However, Held argues that more resources are needed for fire prevention. He says this should include encouraging fire-related behavior among citizens, such as avoiding flammable plant species in gardens, cleaning roof drains, cleaning the area around buildings and disposing of garden waste. So that it does not become fuel for the fire.
“Sometimes you see pictures of small villages and towns destroyed by fire… and in the middle of it all you see some houses that have survived, seemingly untouched, yet with a green surrounding around them- And this is living proof that yes… fire behavior works,” Held said.
Cities should also ensure that green spaces and parks are free of debris on the ground and include large trees that provide shade, keep the ground moist and reduce wind, says Held.
“Preventive measures that can be taken are, for example, spatial planning. “This could help reduce urban sprawl,” says Berkmans.
Cities should focus on keeping areas on their outskirts free of twigs, grass and leaves, which can catch fire rapidly when dry. “We have examples where municipalities employ herders with sheep and goats to create pasture buffer zones, which will leave out large trees and eat up all the good fuel.”
Edited by: Lewis Osborne
This article was originally published on August 19, 2024 and was updated on January 9, 2025 to include information about the wildfires in Los Angeles.
