Regional issues of fire management: The role of extreme weather, climate and vegetation type

Abstract

It is of paramount importance to discuss and reflect on the influence that climate and land management have on fire regimes and, consequently, on the regional character of fire management. Our focus is on the Iberian Peninsula, although the results and conclusions presented here are common to many other regions of the world with a Mediterranean climate. The discussion is based on the concept of risk, starting with conjunctural risk factors, moving on to structural factors and including their interconnection. Conjunctural risk factors of weather and climate are discussed in the context of requirements for fire to occur, which include the existence of fuels, a state of dryness suitable for combustion and a source of ignition. The influence of climate and weather is discussed at different space-time scales and related to characteristics of vegetation and land management. The roles of atmospheric patterns, types of weather, extreme events, meteorological hazard indices in patterns of fire incidence, their grouping and definition of pyro-regions are presented. Within structural factors, human populations shape fire regimes by changing the ignition patterns, fighting wildfires, modifying landscapes (e.g., urbanization, deforestation and afforestation) and changing land management. Finally, the interconnection between these risk factors in the context of global changes, in particular climate change, and the challenges they pose to the regional landscape, forest and fire management are highlighted.