Wildfires are an increasingly common phenomenon that are affecting several communities worldwide every year. Despite significant investments and the development of novel emergency strategies, the size and frequency of large events continue to grow. Rapid climate change is certainly an element of added unpredictability, which makes it difficult to implement effective response measures. The large scale of the problem and the complexity of the affected ecosystems demand new and multifaceted perspectives of resilience. In this paper current approaches and challenges of wildfire emergency response and resilience assessment are analyzed. Furthermore, social perspectives that are often neglected in current practices are discussed. A key point that results from this analysis is the contrast between the technological progress that allows the development of advanced models and the barriers to implementation faced by decision-makers. Clarifying these aspects and including them into a novel wildfire resilience framework would help prioritize efforts and guide future research.