Large wildland fires in three diverse regions in Spain from 1978 to 2010.

Abstract

Aim of study: Large wildland fires (LWF) are major disturbance processes affecting many ecosystems each year. In last decades, socio-economic changes have contributed to major changes in land uses. This study assess trends in number, burned area and average size of large wildfires (> 100 ha) from 1978 to 2010 in Spain.Area of study: This work analyzes three clearly different regions of Spain (Mediterranean coast, MC, Mediterranean Interior, MI, Northwestern Spain, NW).Material and Methods: We studied historical wildland fire data from Spain’s EGIF database (General Statistics on Wildland Fires). We selected only wildland fires larger than 100 ha. All LWF were analyzed to test trends in number of fires, burned area and mean fire size.Main results: The number of LWF decreased in all regions but the burned area only decreased in MC and NW regions. However, both the number of LWF and the burned area did not decrease after 1995 in any region. The average size of LWF did not change in any of the three regions. Fires larger than 500 ha were very significant due to the high percentage of area burned in relation to the total area burned by fires larger than 100 ha (79.3 % in MC, 63.9 % in MI, and 35.7% in NW).Research highlights: After 1995, the number of LWF and burned area did not decrease. Additional actions are required including learned lessons from past LWF spread, and better trained fire suppression workers and more fuel management.Keywords: large wildland fires; trends; forest management; Spain.

Exploring spatial–temporal dynamics of fire regime features in mainland Spain

“…2), supported by findings from MK, which detects a decrease in frequency and affected area (Table 3). Cardil and Molina (2013) report similar changes, although these authors have taken large fires to be those burning more than 100 ha and have excluded some provinces from their assessment. They and others, like Brotons et al (2013) and Ruffault and Mouillot (2015), suggest that large fires have decreased because extinguishing methods have improved, again, mainly due to the extraordinary investment that Spain has devoted to fire suppression.…”

Reply to Reviewer 1

“…2), supported by findings from MK, which detects a decrease in frequency and affected area (Table 3). Cardil and Molina (2013) report similar changes, although these authors have taken large fires to be those burning more than 100 ha and have excluded some provinces from their assessment. They and others, like Brotons et al (2013) and Ruffault and Mouillot (2015), suggest that large fires have decreased because extinguishing methods have improved, again, mainly due to the extraordinary investment that Spain has devoted to fire suppression.…”

“…The latter found an apparent shift in the mid-1980s, the same as we detected. Among the feasible causes that may explain this spatial contrast, we found factors such as land use changes caused by land abandonment leading to vegetation recovery during recent years (Bonet and Pausas, 2007;Castellnou et al, 2010), resulting in an accumulation of fuels. However, the burned area shows a decrease in all regions and seasons.…”

Analysis of factors influencing deployment of fire suppression resources in Spain using artificial neural networks

“…Some regional differences should be expected as different fire regimes in Atlantic (NW Spain) and Mediterranean Spain have been identified in previous studies (Verdu et al 2012, Cardil & Molina 2013, Moreno et al 2014, and agencies naturally adjust their deployment protocols to the different ignition and propagation conditions and the values at risk. Resource use in large fires in the Mediterranean areas was substantially above the Spanish average.…”

“…Models for deployment and containment of large fires have very rarely been explored (Finney et al 2009). Therefore, we studied fires larger than 100 ha because they cause the most serious problems to fire agencies and society, and because they account for a very high percentage of the total burned area (Cardil & Molina 2013). Furthermore, in large fires the fire behavior is usually more extreme, and this can influence the risk perception of managers, and hence their deployment decisions (Mills & Bratten 1988).…”