Across the Mediterranean region, wildfires are becoming larger, more intense, and more destructive. Climate change is part of the story, but it is not the only driver. Land abandonment and inadequate forest management have increased fuel build-up, making many Mediterranean landscapes highly flammable. At the same time, decades of prioritising fire suppression over prevention have made firefighting increasingly costly and less effective.
This raises a critical question: can landscape-scale fire prevention deliver better outcomes than continuing to rely primarily on fire suppression?
What did the study do?
Our research (Sil et al., 2026, Evaluation of cost-effectiveness and economic sustainability of fire-smart strategies based on the Fire Protection Ecosystem Service) explored this question in a fire-prone Mediterranean mountain landscape in Portugal. Using the LANDIS-II forest landscape model, we projected how the landscape and fire activity could evolve between 2020 and 2050 under climate and land-use scenarios, and two contrasting approaches:
- Fire-smart management: landscape-scale fire-preventive actions, including fuel-type conversion, prescribed burning, grazing, and mechanical treatments, implemented to reduce fire spread and intensity.
- Business as usual (BAU): minimal fire-preventive actions, reflecting a strategy that primarily focuses on fire suppression.
To compare the two approaches, we conducted cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses within the Fire Protection Ecosystem Services (FPES) conceptual framework. This framework highlights the role of landscapes in regulating fire regimes, benefiting both people and nature, including reducing damage to livelihoods, decreasing firefighting costs, minimising ecological losses, and maximising ecosystem services.
What did the study find?
The results tell a clear story: fire prevention pays off. Fire-smart management reduced the number of extreme fire events, lowered fire suppression costs, and minimised losses of ecosystem services. Although fire-preventive land management requires upfront investment, these costs were offset by savings from fewer large and intense wildfires.
Among the options tested, combining silvopasture with forest fuel management delivered the highest net benefits, making it the most sustainable strategy.
Why does this matter?
As highly flammable landscapes and climate change jointly increase wildfire risk across the Mediterranean region, relying solely on fire suppression is becoming increasingly costly and less effective against extreme wildfires. Integrating cost-effective and sustainable fire-prevention measures into landscape management can enhance the fire-regulating function of landscapes and their supply of ecosystem services, protect people’s livelihoods, and reduce the societal costs of firefighting.
Take-home messages
- Fire is an integral ecological process in Mediterranean ecosystems, but extreme wildfires are becoming more likely as land abandonment, inadequate forest management, fire exclusion, and climate change interact.
- Although wildfires cannot be completely avoided, strategic landscape-scale fire prevention can substantially reduce the occurrence and impacts of extreme wildfires.
- The Fire Protection Ecosystem Services (FPES) conceptual framework is useful for supporting planning and decision-making on alternative fire and landscape management strategies.
- Fire-smart landscape management is more cost-effective and delivers greater long-term ecological and societal benefits than relying primarily on suppression.
- As global change intensifies fire regimes, preventing the most damaging wildfires is the smartest way to fight them.
This piece was contributed by Ângelo Sil, João P. Honrado, Paulo M. Fernandes, and João C. Azevedo. You can read the full study here.
Full reference
Sil, Â., Honrado, J. P., Fernandes, P. M., & Azevedo, J. C. (2026). Evaluation of cost-effectiveness and economic sustainability of fire-smart strategies based on the Fire Protection Ecosystem Service. Fire Ecology.
