Towards Resilient Critical Infrastructure in the face of Extreme Wildfire Events: Lessons and Policy Pathways from the US and EU

Escalating extreme wildfires, fueled by the confluence of climate change, land use pat-terns alterations, and flammable fuels accumulation, pose significant and increasingly destructive risks to Critical Infrastructure (CI). This study presents a comprehensive comparative analysis of wildfires impacts, and the corresponding CI resilience strate-gies employed across the EU and the US. It examines the vulnerability of CIs to the devastating effects of wildfires and their inadvertently contribution to wildfire ignition and spread. The study evaluates EU's CER Directive and US National Infrastructure Protection Plan and as-sesses European Commission wildfire resilience related initiatives including FIRE-LOGUE, FIRE-RES, SILVANUS, and TREEADS flagship projects. It synthesizes empir-ical evidence and extracts key lessons learned from major wildfire events in the EU (2017 Portuguese fires; 2018 Mati wildfire) and the US (2023 Lahaina disaster; 2025 Los An-geles fires), drawing insights regarding the effectiveness of various resilience measures and identifying areas for improvement. Persistent challenges impeding effective wild-fire resilience are identified, including governance fragmentation, lack of standardiza-tion in risk assessment and mitigation protocols, and insufficient integration of scien-tific knowledge and data into policy formulation and implementation. It concludes with actionable recommendations aimed at fostering science-based, multi-stakeholder ap-proaches to strengthen wildfire resilience at both policy and operational levels.

KALAPODIS Nikolaos;  SAKKAS Georgios;  KAZANTZIDOU-FIRTINIDOU Danai;  ALCASENA Fermin;  CARDARILLI Monica;  EFTYCHIDIS George;  KOERNER Cassie;  MOORE-MERRELL Lori;  GUGLIANDOLO Emilia;  DEMESTICHAS Konstantinos;  KOLAITIS Dionysios;  EID Mohamed;  VARELA Vasiliki;  BERCHTOLD Claudia;  KALABOKIDIS Kostas;  ROUSSOU Olga;  CHANDRAMOULI Krishna;  PANTAZIDOU Maria;  COX Mike Cox;  SCHULTZ Anthony; 

2026-02-06

MDPI MULTIDISCIPLINARY DIGITAL PUBLISHING INSTITUTE

JRC143501

2412-3811 (online),   

https://www.mdpi.com/2412-3811/10/9/246,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC143501,   

10.3390/infrastructures10090246 (online),