Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WILDLAND FIRE
Volume 21, Issue 4, Pages 380-384Publisher
CSIRO PUBLISHING
DOI: 10.1071/WF10063
Keywords
fire frequency analysis; fire regimes; Mediterranean-type ecosystems; shrubland
Categories
Funding
- European Commission [FP6-018505]
- European Union
- FCT Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology [FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022696]
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The relative influence of the factors acting on burn probability, namely fuel and weather, is not well understood, especially in Europe. We use a digital fire atlas (1975-2008) and apply survival analysis to individual fires (1998-2008) to describe how burn probability changes with fuel age in Portugal. The typical fire return interval and median fire-free interval vary regionally from 23 to 52 and 18 to 47 years. Increase of the hazard of burning with time is generally near-linear, denoting moderate fuel-age dependency, as in some other shrub-dominated Mediterranean environments. Analysis of complete fire intervals resulted in shorter fire return interval and higher fuel-age dependency of burn probability than findings that included censored observations. Increasingly severe weather conditions either expressed through fire size or by extreme fire danger concurrently decreased fuel-age dependency and selected older fuels. The results are discussed from the viewpoints of fire suppression and fuel treatments.
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