An analysis of the diversity of wildfire vulnerability indicators and the coherence of action tasks in detailed implementation plans for climate change adaptation measures in metropolitan and local governments

Climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of wildfires, underscoring the need for adaptation strategies beyond short-term suppression. In South Korea, large recent wildfires including the 2022 Uljin Samcheok event and the record-breaking 2025 Gyeongbuk Province fire have emphasized the limitations of current response systems. Local governments are required to establish climate change adaptation plans using VESTAP (Vulnerability AssESsment Tool to build Climate Change Adaptation Plan), yet the actual diversity and coherence of wildfire-related indicators within these plans remain unclear. This study examined detailed implementation plans from 17 metropolitan and 219 municipal governments to assess the use of wildfire vulnerability indicators and the consistency of wildfire-related action tasks. Indicators were categorized into exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, standardized through preprocessing, and analyzed in terms of frequency, cumulative coverage, and inter-municipal similarity using the Jaccard index. Action tasks were text-mined and compared with VESTAP’s adaptive capacity indicators. Results showed that indicator selection was heavily concentrated, with cumulative coverage exceeding 94% in all domains and median Jaccard indices of 1.0, reflecting highly uniform combinations across municipalities. Among 540 wildfire-related action statements, a total of 123 coherence cases were identified with adaptive capacity indicators, mostly limited to human resources, while financial capacity, equipment, and public education were rarely represented. These findings indicate that wildfire adaptation policies remain narrowly framed. Expanding indicators to include anthropogenic ignition sources, land use, and community factors, as well as broadening adaptive capacity measures to reflect financial, institutional, and educational dimensions, is essential. Moreover, the current five-year planning cycle should be complemented by iterative monitoring and interim reviews to better capture seasonal and interannual wildfire variability.