Fire behavior of Japanese vegetation – lessons learned from Ofunato Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fire

A fire in Ofunato-city, Iwate on February 2025 became the largest wildland fire in 60 years in Japan, burning 3370 ha. While often called Ofunato wildland fire, the burned area contained90 homes and 136 non-residential structures that were destroyed, rendering this disaster a a wildland-urban interface (WUI) fire. In recent years in Japan, WUI fires happened, threating communities, yet this was not considered an issue as WUI fires in Japan are much smaller compared to those in North America or Europe. Thus, the research on WUI fires in Japan lags behind other parts of the world. In this study, vegetation native to Japan was combusted to investigate the fire behavior as well as firebrand production in order to develop knowledge on local vegetation to prevent fire spread.