Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Touristic Infrastructure Protection Solutions : Guidelines for good practices for human protection

Wildfires in wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas present significant threats, especially to populations unprepared for emergency situations. Effective emergency strategies must consider human behaviour, and decision-making processes. Tourists, often unfamiliar with wildfire risks, face unique challenges in evacuation, requiring tailored strategies. Cross-border regions with diverse cultures and languages further complicate evacuation efforts. Addressing tourist vulnerability necessitates understanding human characteristics influencing decision-making and developing tools for their assessment. This report builds on research on human behaviour that offer insights into human responses to emergencies. After reviewing the human characteristics, we offer an approach of archetypes as a valuable tool in modelling human behaviour during evacuations. We take a step further and develop a tourist population vulnerability assessment tool based on a literature review, stakeholder interviews, and archetype adaptation. The tool aims to enhance the protection of tourist populations in areas prone to wildfires, offering a guideline for good practices for human protection.