Wildfire risk has been exacerbated across Europe by climate change favoring more damaging and severe wildfire events. This evolving wildfire risk context interacts with a broad landscape of EU policies including those on nature conservation, forestry, bioeconomy or climate and energy, all of which may increase or reduce fire hazard and the level of exposure and vulnerability of the values at risk. Coherently addressed, policies may support wildfire disaster risk management synergistically while reducing potential dysfunctions. This research conducts a content analysis of EU policies and initiatives under the European Green Deal with respect to integrated wildfire risk management and related nature-based solutions. The results show that a consistent EU policy framework to address wildfire risk reduction in a synergic way exists, with no major conflicts in the policy design. Nevertheless, better guidance on fire-smart land management practices and the conceptualization of wildfire-related nature-based solutions may enhance a more coherent policy implementation. Additional suggestions around the legal status of wildfire protection and ‘whole of government’ governance frameworks are discussed. Notably, within the laws, policies and initiatives analyzed, the beneficial side of fire addressed by integrated fire management is either missing or not explicitly mentioned, although it is considered in policy-related supporting guidelines.

Fuel management for wildfire risk prevention generally lacks economic sustainability. In marginal areas of southern Europe, this limits fuel treatment programs from reaching the critical mass of required treated area to modify landscape flammability, the fire regime and its impacts. This study investigates key fuel management initiatives for wildfire risk prevention in southern EU countries. We compared local approaches through a bottom-up selection of 38 initiatives, which we analyzed systematically through a set of fire-smart criteria: sustainability, cost-benefit ratio, synergies and inter-sectoral cooperation, integration between strategic prevention planning and multiple land governance goals (e.g., rural development, biodiversity conservation, energy supply), innovation and knowledge transfer, and adaptive management. We summarized lessons learned from the most innovative initiatives, by identifying solutions and functional approaches for building sustainable fuel management at the landscape scale, under fire-smart management principles. These make synergistic use of private, public and European resources to activate value chains that valorize the products, by-products and services generated by fuel management activities and their positive externalities on ecosystem services. The multiple mechanisms include fire-marketing, Payment for Ecosystem Services schemes, specific taxes, or environmental compensatory measures. These mechanisms catalyze the interest of multiple stakeholders (economic actors, private owners, land and fire management agencies) improving the cost-efficiency of landscape fuel management. We contend that the EU Green Deal offers the political backing and framework (mainstreaming of EU strategies and funding opportunities) to enable the replication of documented fire-smart models and functional approaches to wildfire risk prevention.