Wildfires raging out of control around Los Angeles have made the California city the latest in a growing line of urban centers facing the reality of deadly flames.
Fanned by heavy winds, the fires have spread into densely populated urban areas, claiming at least five lives and destroying more than 1,000 buildings.
As global temperatures rise, scenes of blazing urban areas are becoming more frequent. In the summer of 2024, black smoke billowed behind the iconic Parthenon temple in Athens as flames tore through the city's suburbs.
The image was a stark illustration that the wildfires intensifying around the world are not confined to remote, rural areas, but also having a huge impact in cities.
The same summer, a large fire also broke out among the trees on Monte Mario hill in the center of Rome. From Halifax in Canada to Cape Town in South Africa, Japan's Nanyo City and now Los Angeles, wildfires have forced thousands of urban residents from their homes in recent months.
Are cities becoming more vulnerable to wildfires?
Climate change is raising temperatures and prolonging drought periods, creating drier fire-prone conditions that make wildfires burn faster, longer and more ferociously.
Forest fires are burning twice as much tree cover as they did two decades ago, according to recent data from global research nonprofit the World Resources Institute.
The growth of cities around the world is increasing their vulnerability to these blazes.
"They are expanding, and it's especially that phenomenon that increases the risk of forest fires affecting the people and the houses," Julie Berckmans, expert in climate risk assessment with the European Environment Agency, told DW.
Globally, areas where there is a "wild urban interface" (WUI) — where buildings and wildland vegetation meet — are expanding, heightening fire risk.
A 2024 study from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research showed that WUI increased by 24% between 2001-2020, with the largest expansion in Africa. This is estimated to have increased the number of wildfires in these zones by 23%, and the areas they burned by 35%. Two-thirds of people exposed to wildfires around the world have their homes in these zones where cities and towns meet the wilderness.
Footage of Athens last summer clearly demonstrated how easily fire can spread in these areas, said Alexander Held, senior expert at the European Forest Institute. "You see a lot of wild and urban interface, where the bushland really grows into the gardens, and then also in the gardens, there's lots of flammable material that make it very easy for a fire to burn right to the house."
Growing rural abandonment, especially in the Mediterranean, is compounding wildfire risk, he told DW, as it means more terrain is left uncultivated and unattended. Fires that would have previously been detected and controlled quickly are edging closer to cities.
And flames don't need to reach city boundaries for wildfires to affect urban residents, as their smoke can travel hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles. In 2023, New York City experienced one of its worst recorded toxic air pollution levels due to Canadian forest fires.
Are some cities more at risk than others?
Cities located in places like California and the Mediterranean that have a dry, subtropical climate are particularly prone to wildfires, explained Alexandra Tyukavina, a geographical scientist at the University of Maryland in the US.
"These are really vulnerable because they've seen droughts in the past years," she told DW. "In general drier places are more prone to fires, historically and in the presence of climate change as well."
The Athens fire broke out after Greece experienced the warmest winter and hottest June and July on record.
Sprawling suburbs in places like the US are particularly exposed to the spread of fire, said Tyukavina, whereas Japan is an example of a country with a completely different type of urban planning. "There cities are more compact and natural areas are kind of separate from the cities. So there's less of this wildland-urban interface area."
Europe and North America are the regions with the highest share of wildfires area within WUI zones, according to 2022 research published in Nature.
What can cities do to better protect themselves?
There needs to be more funding for early warning systems, more guidance on forest management as well as public awareness raising, given that most forest fires are started by human activity, said Berckmans.
According to European Commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari, almost 700 firefighters, two firefighting airplanes and two helicopters were mobilized from across the EU to help support local Greek forces battle the 2024 fires in Athens.
However, Held argued that more resources need to be put into fire prevention. He said this should include encouraging precautionary behavior among citizens, such as avoiding flammable plant species in gardens, cleaning roof gutters, clearing space around buildings and properly removing garden waste so it doesn't provide fuel for a fire.
"Sometimes you see pictures of whole little villages and cities wiped out by fire [...] and in the middle of this you see some houses that survived, seemingly untouched, still a green garden around it. And these are the living proofs of yes... fire-wise behavior does work," said Held.
Cities should also ensure green spaces and parks are free from debris on the ground and include large trees that provide shade, keep the ground moist and reduce wind, he added.
“Preventive measures that can be taken are, for example, spatial planning. It can help to reduce urban sprawl," said Berckmans.
Cities should look to areas on their outskirts free of twigs, grasses and leaves that can rapidly ignite when dry, explained Held. "We have examples where municipalities employ shepherds with sheep and goats to have a grazed buffer zone, which would leave the bigger trees and eat up all the fine fuels."
Source: DW
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
