Establishing the Wildland-Urban interface building risk index (WUIBRI): The case study of Beit-Meri

Dwellers experience a constant threat of wildfires when constructing their residences in woodland settings in or near forests. In these regions, also recognized as Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), consequences of wildfires can be fatal to humans, animals and vegetation. The establishment of wildfire risk indexes is useful when produced on a community scale; these indexes proved their effectiveness worldwide to identify vulnerabilities to ignition and fire spread, to understand the underlying science and to simulate exposure. In this paper, four main inputs (i.e. wildfire likelihood, defensible space, building envelope, and community infrastructure) are used to produce the WUI Building Risk Index (WUIBRI), representing the wildfire likelihood at the property-level, in a typical WUI area, namely, Beit-Meri – Lebanon. Results show that one fourth of the total buildings have an undesirable WUIBRI value – greater than eight, demanding fast response and effective mitigation techniques. This index illustrates a weak positive spatial autocorrelation in the study area, which measures dependency among sub-regions, and no relationship with the buildings’ prices.