Table 6 Primary emergent themes from expert interviews and Mediterranean literature review on structural, demographic information, and higher scale dynamics. These themes are interpreted as enablers or barriers to fire adaptive capacity. Blank cells in the literature column indicate that no literature was found on the subject, though it was discussed in interviews. Blank cells in the interview column demonstrate that these themes were explored in the literature, but not the interviews. We additionally include the area of literature study to illustrate the precise geographies of the findings

Enablers

Sustainable economic development: tourism, agriculture, forestry, renewable energy, territorial planning

(Roura-Pascual et al. 2005; Berthet 2012; San-Miguel-Ayanz et al. 2013; Molina and Galiana-Martín 2016; Tedim et al. 2016; Bovio et al. 2017; Otero and Nielsen 2017; Verkerk et al. 2018; Alcasena et al. 2019; Aggestam and Giurca 2021; Wunder et al. 2021)

French Eastern Pyrenees; French Eastern Pyrenees; Mediterranean Europe; Spain; Mediterranean Europe; Italy; Catalonia, Spain; Mediterranean Europe; Catalonia, Spain; European Union; Mediterranean Europe

Cultural perception of self-responsibility (not entrusting all changes to the state)

(Tedim et al. 2016; Oliveira et al. 2017; Wunder et al. 2021)

Mediterranean Europe; Portugal; Mediterranean Europe

Population retention without unchecked urban development

(López-i-Gelats et al. 2009)

Pallars Sobirà, Catalonia

Broader environmental education & awareness programs

(Roura-Pascual et al. 2005; San-Miguel-Ayanz et al. 2013; Bovio et al. 2017; Oliveira et al. 2017; Castelló and Montagut 2019; Molina-Terrén et al. 2019; Tedim et al. 2021)

French Eastern Pyrenees; Mediterranean Europe; Italy; Portugal; Catalonia, Spain; Mediterranean Europe; Portugal

Media raising awareness on climate change, fire risk and fire ecology

(Castelló and Montagut 2019)

Catalonia, Spain

Maintaining small forest properties (methods to overcome land fragmentation issues)

None found

Access to public services: water, light, plumbing, internet, road conditions

None found

Fire infrastructure maintenance and multipurpose use of roads

None found

Local organization/administration access to funding

None found

Inter-administrative collaboration for fire management (ie. Departments of agriculture, environment, forestry, culture…)

None found

Barriers

High private property ownership & fragmentation

(Otero et al. 2018; Alcasena et al. 2019)

Catalonia, Spain; Catalonia, Spain

EU-level policies harming small scale farming, forestry, rural development

(Agnoletti 2007; Dedeire et al. 2013; Guadilla-Sáez et al. 2019; Bidegain et al. 2020; Agnoletti et al. 2022)

Tuscany, Italy; Mediterranean Europe; Cantabria, Spain; Andalucía, Spain; Tuscany, Italy

Macro-scale tertiarization processes influence fire risk

(López-i-Gelats et al. 2009; Galiana-Martin et al. 2011; Dedeire et al. 2013; Kelly et al. 2015; Oliveira et al. 2017; Carlucci et al. 2019)

Pallars Sobirà, Catalonia; Valencia, Spain; Mediterranean Europe; Basilicata, Italy; Mediterranean Europe; Italy

Low local autonomy to address fire governance issues and land use planning

(Kelly et al. 2015; Kocher and Butsic 2017; Bouisset et al. 2018a, b; Alcasena et al. 2019)

Basilicata, Italy; California & French Mediterranean; French Atlantic Pyrenees; Catalonia, Spain

Not mentioned

Few studies on social vulnerabilities to disasters (Laurent 2013; Aguilar Cunill 2013; Frigerio and Amicis 2016; Farinella et al. 2017)

French Mediterranean; Tarragona, Catalonia; Italy; Italy & Greece