Papers by Giuseppe Mariano Delogu
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
This study aimed to assess current perceptions of heat stress, heat strain, acclimatisation and r... more This study aimed to assess current perceptions of heat stress, heat strain, acclimatisation and recovery practices in wildland fire suppression. A total of 1459 wildfire and structural firefighters, all involved in wildland fire suppression, completed an 18-question survey. Most participants (81.3%) reported heat strain as one of the main risks faced during wildland firefighting. Thermal strain is considered an important risk for health and safety in wildland firefighting. The best-valued heat strain mitigation strategies were those traditionally recommended in wildland fire suppression: (i) an adequate work/rest ratio (79.0%), (ii) acclimatisation (71.6%), (iii) enhancing body ventilation by opening protective clothing or removing helmets or gloves (63.5%), and (iv) drinking water and food supplementation (52.1%). Despite these results, only 22% of the participants reported carrying out acclimatisation in the workplace. The vast majority of the respondents (87.4%) consider active c...
L'Italia Forestale e Montana, 2007
Il lavoro esamina la rinnovazione naturale post-incendio (polloni) in un ceduo matricinato di lec... more Il lavoro esamina la rinnovazione naturale post-incendio (polloni) in un ceduo matricinato di leccio (Quercus ilex L.) nella Sardegna sud-orientale (Gerrei). Valori non significativamente differenti della rinnovazione, sia nel numero di polloni che nei parametri biometrici, ascrivibili a differenze del trattamento post-incendio adottato, in un contesto di omogeneità stazionale pedologica e climatica, suggeriscono di esaminare con molta attenzione l'opportunità di eseguire gli interventi di sgombero dei fusti morti nella stagione silvana immediatamente successiva al passaggio del fuoco e di sfollo dei ricacci meno vigorosi in funzione della massima salvaguardia dei processi biologici che naturalmente prendono avvio nella fase di ricostituzione del soprassuolo forestale percorso dal fuoco anche in ragione degli elevati costi aggiuntivi da sostenere. Parole chiave: ceduo percorso da incendio; sgombero non immediato dei fusti; numero dei polloni; rinnovazione post-incendio; Quercus ilex L.
Forest Ecology and Management, 2006
Fire, 2018
Every year worldwide some extraordinary wildfires occur, overwhelming suppression capabilities, c... more Every year worldwide some extraordinary wildfires occur, overwhelming suppression capabilities, causing substantial damages, and often resulting in fatalities. Given their increasing frequency, there is a debate about how to address these wildfires with significant social impacts, but there is no agreement upon terminology to describe them. The concept of extreme wildfire event (EWE) has emerged to bring some coherence on this kind of events. It is increasingly used, often as a synonym of other terms related to wildfires of high intensity and size, but its definition remains elusive. The goal of this paper is to go beyond drawing on distinct disciplinary perspectives to develop a holistic view of EWE as a social-ecological phenomenon. Based on literature review and using a transdisciplinary approach, this paper proposes a definition of EWE as a process and an outcome. Considering the lack of a consistent "scale of gravity" to leverage extreme wildfire events such as in natural hazards (e.g., tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes) we present a proposal of wildfire classification with seven categories based on measurable fire spread and behavior parameters and suppression difficulty. The categories 5 to 7 are labeled as EWE.
iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, 2014
International Journal of Wildland Fire
Wildfire fatalities remain a significant problem in Mediterranean Europe. Although there is a str... more Wildfire fatalities remain a significant problem in Mediterranean Europe. Although there is a strong inter-annual variability with regard to their number, repeated tragic accidents remind us of this grim occurrence, despite the increasing firefighting capacity aimed to improve human safety. In this paper, we present an analysis of the 865 fatalities caused by wildfires in the 1945–2016 period. Data originating from national databases were merged, contextual and weather factors related to the accidents that caused these deaths were documented and analysed to explore probable relationships with the number and type of fatalities. Results show a major rise of fatalities in late 1970s in the four regions of Greece, Sardinia (Italy), Spain and Portugal. Fatalities present a strong seasonality in summer months, as expected. Overall, Spain has the highest absolute numbers of fatalities; however, normalisations by population, and burned and forest area show that annual number of fatalities i...
Extreme Wildfire Events and Disasters
Extreme Wildfire Events and Disasters
Extreme Wildfire Events and Disasters
The Open Forest Science Journal, 2011
The island of Sardinia is the biggest producer of natural cork in Italy. In this study, cork oak ... more The island of Sardinia is the biggest producer of natural cork in Italy. In this study, cork oak cover change is investigated in a typical agro-silvopastoral system where the main activities are cereal fodder and wheat cultivation, sheep rearing and cork exploitation. The research method is based on the comparison of two land use maps produced by photo-interpretation of digitised aerial photographs taken in 1954 and 1998, combined with interviews with local farmers, field surveys, and data collected from literature, administrative documentation and decadal censuses (at council level). The results show that the cork oak woodland surface decreased (-29%). It was substituted by other forest, ploughed land, and mixed grassland and shrubland. Apart from the transformation of the cork oak woodland to other forest, other changes have happened probably because of an increase in agricultural and pastoral activities as described by the documental material available for the same area.
CERNE
The worst outcome of wildland fires is the loss of human lives, a recurrent phenomenon over the l... more The worst outcome of wildland fires is the loss of human lives, a recurrent phenomenon over the last few decades in Sardinia, Europe and worldwide. This work analyzes all recorded fatalities in wildland fires in Sardinia from 1945 to 2015 and trends in terms of annual number of fatalities. This time period was split due to legal and socioeconomic changes periods (1945-1975; 1976-2000; 2001-2015). We classified accident types during wildland fires to study the most frequent causes of fatalities and how they were related 1) to involved human groups (professional firefighters, auxiliary firefighters, and civilians, 2) to fire size and 3) to extreme weather conditions. We observed that the annual number of victims was higher in the 1981-1999 period than in other periods with 2.6 fatalities per year. Entrapment is the most frequent cause of death within the fire professional firefighters (75.6 %). The rate of fatalities seemed to be higher in the 1981-1999 period for “civilians” and lowe...
Every year worldwide some extraordinary wildfires occur, overwhelming suppression capabilities, c... more Every year worldwide some extraordinary wildfires occur, overwhelming suppression capabilities, causing substantial damages, and often resulting in fatalities. Given their increasing frequency, there is a debate about how to address these wildfires with significant social impacts, but there is no agreement upon terminology to describe them. The concept of extreme wildfire event (EWE) has emerged to bring some coherence on this kind of events. It is increasingly used, often as a synonym of other terms related to wildfires of high intensity and size, but its definition remains elusive. The goal of this paper is to go beyond drawing on distinct disciplinary perspectives to develop a holistic view of EWE as a social-ecological phenomenon. Based on literature review and using a transdisciplinary approach, this paper proposes a definition of EWE as a process and an outcome. Considering the lack of a consistent " scale of gravity " to leverage extreme wildfire events such as in natural hazards (e.g., tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes) we present a proposal of wildfire classification with seven categories based on measurable fire spread and behavior parameters and suppression difficulty. The categories 5 to 7 are labeled as EWE.
Uploads
Papers by Giuseppe Mariano Delogu