A physical vulnerability index for forest fires in Austria as a tool for climate change adaptation.

Due to climate change, it is postulated that the frequency and extent of forest fires in Austria will change significantly. Furthermore, recent events in Austria as well as in neighboring countries have shown that forest fires also pose a risk where there are no or insufficient records of historical events or other experience in dealing with forest fires. While extensive research on the natural hazard of forest fires exists in the international context, but also in Austria (especially with regard to modeling fire occurrence, spread, and spatio-temporal predictions), studies dealing with the effects of forest fires on the built environment have so far been underrepresented in research and implementation in practice. To address this knowledge gap, the proposed StartClim project focuses on the vulnerability of buildings to wildfire. Buildings (and infrastructure) in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) need innovative methods to assess vulnerability, especially because the availability of empirical data is very limited due to the small amount of previous damage cases. The PHLoX project therefore combines literature review methods and semi-structured interview techniques to tap into missing knowledge. An inclusion of different stakeholders from Austria and other countries will allow to identify those building characteristics and features of the building environment that have a significant influence on the extent of damage in forest fires. These so-called vulnerability indicators will subsequently be weighted to produce a wildfire vulnerability index (WVI), which can subsequently be used to support decision-making processes, risk mitigation strategies and possible climate change adaptation measures.