Vulnerability and wildfire risk in evacuation support: Methodological proposal applied to the municipalities of Lousa and Serta

The assessment of the risk of evacuation in a wildfire scenario can be decisive to save human lives, especially in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas. This study aims to identify the priority settlements in terms of evacuation and assistance in the municipalities of Lousa and Serta, through the combination of the susceptibility of wildfires occurrence, resulting from the combination of biophysical variables, and the social vulnerability, directed towards evacuation support, based on socio-demographic variables, at the statistical subsection scale. The results emphasise two municipalities extremely susceptible to the occurrence of forest fires and a wide variation in terms of social vulnerability, directed towards evacuation, based on the different approaches applied. Settlements located in more mountainous areas, surrounded by forested communities of maritime pine or eucalyptus, with high social vulnerability, were classified as priorities for evacuation.