Forest Fires: Risk, Consequences, and Technological Advances in their Analysis and Management

In recent decades, wildfire regimes worldwide have undergone significant alterations due to the interaction of multiple factors, including the increasing intensity and frequency of heatwaves and droughts, and the effects of changing land-use and productive practices on forest ecosystems.Under these conditions, the negative impacts of wildfires, most notably the emission of large quantities of greenhouse gases, the degradation of soil properties, biodiversity loss, and the disruption of hydrological and carbon cycles, have been amplified.Furthermore, to these environmental impacts, we must add the destruction of infrastructure and material assets and, most importantly, the threat to human lives.Wildfires, therefore, are among the most pressing environmental challenges of our time, reshaping ecosystems, economies, and societies amid accelerating global change.The complexity of their causes and consequences demands an interdisciplinary approach-one that combines prevention and management strategies with ecological understanding, technological innovation, and social engagement.To quantify wildfire risk and assess fire impacts from a multidisciplinary perspective, it is essential to develop and apply modelling and monitoring tools across multiple spatial and temporal scales, combining advanced geospatial technologies with field-based approaches.By doing this, researchers and managers can identify risk patterns, assess damages, and design context-specific recovery strategies, thereby optimising decision-making and long-term planning.