Burning Matters : A comparative case study of how the EU and the OECD frame Portugal’s wildfire crisis management

Abstract: Wildfires are a part of the growing concern regarding climate issues in our society, and since the 1990s, the intensity of wildfires has grown. As wildfires affect our societies, countries have adapted crisis management strategies to tackle the issue of wildfires with help from international organisations. Research has been done on the topic of framing crisis management and the framing of wildfires. Nevertheless, these two fields have never been studied together. This study aims to examine how international organisations frame wildfire crisis management in the case of Portugal. Official assessment documents from the EU and the OECD have been analysed using a framing method. The findings of the study are that the most persistent framing of Portugal's wildfire crisis management is policy failure; however, depending on what areas one is analysing, fragments of actor failure can also be detected.