Citation

Fernandes PM, Loureiro C, Magalhães M, Ferreira P, Fernandes M. Int. J. Wildland Fire 2012; 21(4): 380-384.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, International Association of Wildland Fire, Fire Research Institute, Publisher CSIRO Publishing)

DOI

10.1071/WF10063

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

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.

Language: en