Landscape variables influencing forest fires in central Spain
José M. Moreno A B C , Olga Viedma A , Gonzalo Zavala A and Belén Luna A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Castilla–La Mancha, Avenida de Carlos III s/n, E-45071 Toledo, Spain.
B Centro de Investigaciones del Fuego, Campus de la Fábrica de Armas, Avenida de Carlos III s/n, E-45071 Toledo, Spain.
C Corresponding author. Email: josem.moreno@uclm.es
International Journal of Wildland Fire 20(5) 678-689 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF10005
Submitted: 12 January 2010 Accepted: 2 December 2010 Published: 8 August 2011
Abstract
In assessing fire risk, it is important to determine whether all areas in a landscape burn at similar rates. This goal is complicated by the limitations of burned-area data and the temporally dynamic nature of landscapes. We assessed the differential degree of forest-fire burning for six landscape variables (land-use–land-cover type, distances to roads and towns, topography (slope, aspect, elevation)), each comprising several categories. The study area (95 × 55 km) was located in central Spain, and the study period covered 16 years. Landsat multispectral scanner images were used to annually map fire perimeters and to classify the landscape. We calculated an annual resource selection index for each category within a variable. The sizes and shapes of all fires occurring within a year were randomly distributed into the landscape 1000 times, and the corresponding resource selection index was calculated. This provided a null random-burning model against which we tested the actual resource selection index of the fires in each year. Pine woodlands showed consistent and significant positive fire selectivity, whereas deciduous woodlands showed consistent and significant negative selectivity. No differences in the resource selection indices of land-use–land-cover types were found between large (>100 ha) and small fires (<100 ha). Fires positively selected (resource selection index >1) areas at small or intermediate distances to towns and intermediate distances to roads. Selectivity for topographic variables was less marked. Our study demonstrates that landscape variables defining composition (land-use–land-cover type) or proximity to human influence are important factors for fire risk.
Additional keywords: fire mapping, fire risk, fire size, global climate change, land-use–land-cover change, landscape structure, Mediterranean ecosystems, Pinus woodlands, wildland–urban interface.
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