Fire-Prevention-Oriented Environmental Design and Governance: A Case Study Focusing on Vernacular Residential World Heritage Sites

The aim of this study is to explore the fire resilience of traditional ancient villages in Huizhou, China, and to reveal “traditional environmental planning knowledge” as a spatial survival strategy for high-density settlements. This study adopts a qualitative interpretive paradigm, combining historical geography with a literature review, field surveys, and overlay analysis. The study found that these villages, during site selection, utilized basin topography to construct a multi-level disaster mitigation system encompassing “macro-level water systems, meso-level alleyways, micro-level firewalls, and sandwich fire-extinguishing floors.” This endogenous physical technology, based on defensive awareness and community agreements, achieves a dynamic balance of resilience between humans and the environment. The cultural interpretation based on the indicators in this study primarily reflects the disaster resilience potential of traditional planning. The conclusions should be carefully interpreted within the framework of traditional environmental design. Furthermore, commercial intervention, infrastructure renovation, and population loss are leading to the neglect of this defensive space. This lack of a holistic perspective will trigger the “resilience degradation” of ancient villages. Future research urgently needs to establish a “resilience decay model” to quantitatively assess the disaster resistance capabilities remaining after damage to the surrounding buffer space, based on traditional environmental planning knowledge.