Fires and their key drivers in Mexico

Abstract

Background: Despite the regional and global effects of biomass burning at national and pantropical scales, little effort has focused on determining the influence of climate and socioeconomic conditions on fire regimes in tropical regions. Aims: We explored the climate and human factors that explain remotely sensed burnt area and fire abundance in Mexico. Methods: We used MCD64A1 data and climate and socioeconomic metrics to understand factors explaining the variation in number of fires and burned area. Key results: The largest burned area (41.9% of the total) occurred in temperate forests, grasslands and hydrophilic vegetation, with numerous fire events of medium relative size. The next most extensive burned area (38%) was observed in croplands, with numerous small-size fires. The third group (17.8%) occurred in tropical forests, which had the smallest and most frequent fires. Finally, a fourth group (11.9%) was composed of shrublands, which showed the largest fire sizes and lowest-frequency events. The variability of burned area was related to variations in temperature and precipitation, poverty index, altitude, and distance to water bodies. Conclusions and Implications: Our analysis suggests that an assessment integrating climate, human and topographic metrics predicts burned area and may improve fire forecasting in Mexico landscapes.