Structural and operational design of a decision support system aiming at forest fire risk management in WUI

In this paper, a methodology based on system modelling and optimization is developed to assess forest fire risk over a regional area paying special attention to Wildland Urban Interface. To this end, a forest fuel moisture model and a propagation model are developed, in order to obtain a dynamic evaluation of the risk. On the basis pf the risk values over the whole area considered, it is possible to apply a resource allocation policy. The objective of such an allocation may be twofold. In the planning phase, a suitable set of infrastructures (roads, water supplies, etc.) capable of mitigating the fire risk over the considered area is considered. Then, resource allocation can take place on the basis of the solution of an optimisation problem, whose objective is the risk minimization in WUI taking into account the constraints corresponding to the available economical resources, and those related to environmental impact assessment. Instead, in the preventive phase, means and crews are re-allocated on the basis of the risk (forecast on the basis of available real-time information), in order to successfully fight initially spread fires.