Environmental determinants of lightning- v. human-induced forest fire ignitions differ in a temperate mountain region of Switzerland
Björn Reineking A B D E , Patrick Weibel A E , Marco Conedera C and Harald Bugmann A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Forest Ecology, Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Environmental Sciences,Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
B Biogeographical Modelling, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany.
C WSL Swiss Federal Research Institute, Insubric Ecosystems Group, via Belsoggiorno 22,CH-6500 Bellinzona, Switzerland.
D Corresponding author. Email: bjoern.reineking@uni-bayreuth.de
E *Authors have contributed equally to this paper.
International Journal of Wildland Fire 19(5) 541-557 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF08206
Submitted: 16 December 2008 Accepted: 9 January 2010 Published: 9 August 2010
Abstract
Understanding the environmental and human determinants of forest fire ignitions is crucial for landscape management. In this study, we consider lightning- and human-induced fires separately and evaluate the relative importance of weather, forest composition and human activities on the occurrence of forest fire ignitions in the most fire-prone region of Switzerland, the Canton Ticino. Independent variables included 14 drought and fire weather indices, forest composition and human influences. Logistic regression models were used to relate these independent variables to records of forest fires over a 37-year period (1969–2005). We found large differences in the importance of environmental and human controls on forest fire ignitions between lightning- and human-induced events: lightning-induced fires occurred in a small range of weather conditions well captured by the Duff Moisture Code from the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System and the LandClim Drought Index, and with negligible influence of distance to human infrastructure, whereas human-induced fires occurred in a wider range of weather conditions well captured by the Angstroem and the Fosberg Fire Weather Index, mainly in deciduous forests, and strongly depending on proximity to human infrastructure. We conclude that the suitability of fire indices can vary dramatically between ignition sources, suggesting that some of these indices are useful within certain regions and fire types only. The ignition source is an important factor that needs to be taken into account by fire managers and when developing models of forest fire occurrence.
Additional keywords: fire weather, forest composition, human influence, logistic regression, Ticino.
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation no. 3100A0–108407. Björn Reineking acknowledges additional support from the EU FP6 integrated project ALARM (GOCE-CT-2003–506675) and the ‘Bavarian Climate Program 2020’ within the joint research centre FORKAST. The authors appreciate the constructive and helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers on an earlier version of the paper.
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and Appendix 1)
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Appendix 3. Definition of land-use categories for distance to infrastructure
Overview on the original categories of the land-use statistics of Switzerland used for the definition of distance to infrastructure. Four sections of activities are differentiated: settlements, work, leisure time and traffic. The overall distance to infrastructure combines all four sections. The numbers in the column ‘Original land-use categories’ correspond to Hotz et al. (2005)
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