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Switzerland

Wildfires

Vulnerabilities

So far, forest fires do not constitute a significant hazard in the central and northern parts of the Alps, while on the southern side they are more common even if the fire number and the burned area are low compared to the neighbouring Mediterranean area, where the climate is more in favour of the development of frequent and large wildfires. Due to their high potential impact in terms of human lives, commodities and natural heritage, however, the Alpine forest fires require a relatively large amount of resources for fire-fighting and prevention: the mountainous environment makes fire fighting very difficult, and a rapid intervention is required because the fires readily endanger human activities and infrastructures. Furthermore, secondary damages via other consecutive natural hazards, such as an enhancement of debris flows, erosion and avalanche danger, may occur, too (3).


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References

The references below are cited in full in a separate map 'References'. Please click here if you are looking for the full references for Switzerland.

  1. Reinhard et al. (2005), in: Agrawala (2007)
  2. Federal Office for the Environment FOEN (Ed.) (2009)
  3. Cane et al. (2013)
  4. Wastl et al. (2012), in: Cane et al. (2013)
  5. Zumbrunnen et al. (2009); Conedera et al. (2011), both in: Henne et al. (2018)
  6. Kipfer et al. (2011), in: Henne et al. (2018)
  7. Ascoli et al. (2013), in: Henne et al. (2018)

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