Reacción a "The wildland-urban interface, which is vulnerable to fires, has grown by 35% since 2000"

As far as I can see, the authors of this study use already available global Land Use and Land Cover maps. They analyse how the forest-urban interface changes over time and cross-reference this with MODIS satellite data of burned areas. They found an increase in the ‘urban’ category that explains the increase in the wildlife-urban interface. Considering the current large wildfire scenario we are in, an increase in the wildland-urban interface increases vulnerability to large fires. These areas are highly exposed to the impact of large fires, as they are surrounded by forest areas that are often unmanaged and without barriers or minimum safety distances.

This seems to be a solid study, although the maps used have an accuracy of around 80 % (varying between classes and years) which indicates that up to 20 % of the map pixels may be misclassified; these are limitations that the authors themselves recognise in the work. Beyond that, it is a wake-up call for current (or past) spatial planning and the current trend towards greater exposure and vulnerability to future wildfires in urban areas. Consideration should be given to how this wildland-urban interface can be reduced, and the perimeters of rural and urban areas should be secured with buffer zones or more open habitats that break the fuel (vegetation) continuum and provide opportunities for fire suppression in these areas.