Bibliometric analysis of fires on wildland-urban interfaces

Abstract

Most wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas in the world will face severe wildfire risks due to climate warming and rapid urbanization. Mitigating the damage caused by WUI fires has become a worthy topic for fire researchers and managers. In recent years, WUI fires have occurred in China and caused significant property damage, and even threatened some communities. To understand the research status and promote WUI fire management in China, this paper collected all research articles published from 1991 to 2021 on the topic. We performed a bibliometric analysis for the year, author, institution, country, journal, and keywords. The results show that 717 research articles were published in the field of WUI fire management over this period. The annual number of published articles has exceeded 40 since 2013 and is expected to reach 80 in 2022. The United States has the most active research institutions and groups working in the field of WUI fire management, with 507 published articles over the past three decades, accounting for 70.7% of the total articles. Ninety percent of the top ten authors or institutions come from the United States. The International Journal of Wildland Fire, an important journal in the field of wildfire, has published 96 research articles on the topic over the same period, accounting for 13.4% of the total. Research focused on WUI fire occurrence and its influencing factors, fire behavior simulation, fire risk assessment, and fuel treatment. Future research on WUI fire management will explore the impacts of climate change on the WUI fire regime, improve risk assessment methods, and enhance fire mitigation strategies.