Forest and Urban Fires ESCo: urban interface resilience to forest fires in the context of climate change
18 septembre 2025
In France, over 80% of vegetation fires occur near dwellings. In the face of increased risk from climate change, fire prevention and fighting strategies must be included in reflections on cities. The Forest and Urban Fires collective scientific expertise (ESCo) is a CNRS initiative that synthesises the state of knowledge on urban interfaces contending with forest fires in the context of climate change, namely by exploring the risk and impact of fires, as well as levers for resilience.
Climate change drives more intense and extended fire risks: up to 50% of France’s territory could become vulnerable by 2050. While fire risks have largely been approached through the lens of forests, the urban component of French climate strategies have particularly focused on mitigation and the adaptations required for rising temperatures. However, it is in the interface between cities and natural spaces that the main sources of fires occur, in addition to the primary exposure of humans and property. These interfaces, known as Wildland Urban Interfaces, now represent a genuine field of research.
The Forest and City Fires expertise, led by the CNRS Mission for Scientific Expertise (MPES), will establish the scientific state of the art for the issues related to fire risk at the urban-forest interface (the term forest is used in the general sense, including all vegetation in these areas), doing so from the standpoint of cities and in the context of climate change. The expertise will base itself on the available scientific literature in order to propose a multidisciplinary synthesis that can be used for public decision making and debate based on two focus areas:
The state of the art for scientific knowledge about fire risk and its impact on urban interfaces;
and a panorama of existing knowledge on adaptation strategies to strengthen the resilience of cities in the face of such risk.
The expertise will determine whether the knowledge acquired abroad can be transposed to France, and if so under what conditions.
The CNRS will ensure that the principles of competence, independence, impartiality, and transparency are adhered to in carrying out this collective scientific expertise.
The expertise will end in the spring of 2026, and will be conducted by a group of multidisciplinary scientific experts on the documentary basis of thousands of references.
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