Characterising weather patterns associated with fire in a seasonally dry tropical forest in southern India
Nandita Mondal A and Raman Sukumar A B C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, Karnataka, India.
B Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, Karnataka, India.
C Corresponding author. Email: rsuku@ces.iisc.ernet.in
International Journal of Wildland Fire 23(2) 196-201 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF13002
Submitted: 17 April 2012 Accepted: 5 June 2013 Published: 26 November 2013
Abstract
Anthropogenic fires in seasonally dry tropical forests are a regular occurrence during the dry season. Forest managers in India, who presently follow a fire suppression policy in such forests, would benefit from a system of assessing the potential risk to fire on a particular day. We examined the relationship between weather variables (seasonal rainfall, relative humidity, temperature) and days of fire during the dry seasons of 2004–2010, based on MODIS fire incident data in the seasonally dry tropical forests of Mudumalai in the Western Ghats, southern India. Logistic regression analysis showed that high probabilities of a fire day, indicating successful ignition of litter and grass fuel on the forest floor, were associated with low levels of early dry season rainfall, low daily average relative humidity and high daily average temperatures. These weather conditions are representative of low moisture levels of fine fuels, suggesting that the occurrence of fire is moderated by environmental conditions that reduce the flammability of fine fuels in the dry tropics. We propose a quantitative framework for assessing risk of a fire day to assist forest managers in anticipating fire occurrences in this seasonally dry tropical forest, and possibly for those across South Asia.
Additional keywords: ambient weather, fuel moisture, logistic regression, seasonal rainfall, temporal prediction of fire.
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