Association between fire causative agents within land cover types and global fire occurrence

Abstract

The association between the global average fire density (AFD) and some possible causative agents—lightning discharges and population density—was analyzed using the Spearman correlation rank coefficient. The analysis was performed for different global fuel types, which were defined according to land cover types and climate. The results show mostly positive correlations between the AFD and lightning, with the highest coefficient values corresponding to shrubs and grasses in the Tropical Dry and Temperate Wet climates. The highest associations between the AFD and the population density were negative, and occurred in the Tropical Wet climate with crops and grasses land cover. The correlation coefficients varied widely depending on the fuel type, and not significant association was found for the Boreal climate.