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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 17(3)

Fire activity in Portugal and its relationship to weather and the Canadian Fire Weather Index System

A. Carvalho A C , M. D. Flannigan B , K. Logan B , A. I. Miranda A and C. Borrego A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Centro de Estudos do Ambiente e do Mar (CESAM) and Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, PT-3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.

B Great Lakes Forestry Centre, 1219 Queen St E., Sault Ste. Marie, ON, P6A 2E5, Canada.

C Corresponding author. Email: avc@ua.pt

International Journal of Wildland Fire 17(3) 328-338 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF07014
Submitted: 19 January 2007  Accepted: 31 August 2007   Published: 23 June 2008

Abstract

The relationships among the weather, the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) System components, the monthly area burned, and the number of fire occurrences from 1980 to 2004 were investigated in 11 Portuguese districts that represent respectively 66% and 61% of the total area burned and number of fires in Portugal. A statistical approach was used to estimate the monthly area burned and the monthly number of fires per district, using meteorological variables and FWI System components as predictors. The approach succeeded in explaining from 60.9 to 80.4% of the variance for area burned and between 47.9 and 77.0% of the variance for the number of fires; all regressions were highly significant (P < 0.0001). The monthly mean and the monthly maximum of daily maximum temperatures and the monthly mean and extremes (maximum and 90th percentile) of the daily FWI were selected for all districts, except for Bragança and Porto, in the forward stepwise regression for area burned. For all districts combined, the variance explained was 80.9 and 63.0% for area burned and number of fires, respectively. Our results point to highly significant relationships among forest fires in Portugal and the weather and the Canadian FWI System. The present analysis provides baseline information for predicting the area burned and number of fires under future climate scenarios and the subsequent impacts on air quality.

Additional keywords: area burned, fire occurrence, forest fires, FWI System.


Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology for the PhD grant of A. Carvalho (SFRH/BD/10882/2002) and the financing of research training at the Canadian Forest Service, Great Lakes Forestry Centre (Canada). This Canadian institution is also greatly acknowledged. The authors are also thankful to Miguel Cruz at the General Directorate of Forestry Resources, Portugal, for the forest fire data provided and the Meteorology Institute, Portugal, for the weather data. We are also thankful to SAS Portugal for the free software availability. INTERFACE Project (POCI/AMB/60660/2004) is acknowledged. All the valuable comments to the present work are also greatly acknowledged.


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