Fire Smart Territory as an innovative approach to wildfire risk reduction

The current view of wildfires in scientific literature is that they cannot be excluded from Earth. It is necessary to learn how to coexist with wildfires. Several initiatives have been proposed to increase buildings resistance and the reduction of fuels. In this chapter is discussed the Fire Smart Territory (FST) concept, as a holistic planning philosophy, acting at territory level. On the one side, it presents an alternative to fuel management, a very expensive activity, proposing the introduction or maintenance of productive activities that break landscape continuity and connectivity, assuring a blanket reduction of fuel load, contributing to decrease vulnerability of the exposed local communities and, consequently, losses and damage. On the other side, the perspective of acting on concerned communities, by empowering them, can be obtained through training, recovery of traditional wisdom, and knowledge, and enhancing their resilience leading to reduction of vulnerability and return of rural communities to their natural role of guardian of the territory or even better the transformers of the territory. FST not only can be effective in containing wildfires but also it guarantees the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.