Future expansion, seasonal lengthening and intensification of fire activity under climate change in southeastern France
François Pimont
A * , Julien Ruffault A , Thomas Opitz B , Hélène Fargeon A , Renaud Barbero C , Jorge Castel-Clavera A , Nicolas Martin-StPaul A , Eric Rigolot A and Jean-Luc Dupuy A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A URFM, INRAE, Domaine Saint Paul, Site Agroparc, 84000 Avignon, France.
B BioSP, INRAE, Avignon, France.
C RECOVER, INRAE, Aix-en-Provence, France.
* Correspondence to: francois.pimont@inrae.fr
International Journal of Wildland Fire 32(1) 4-14 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF22103
Submitted: 22 June 2022 Accepted: 11 November 2022 Published: 5 December 2022
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Background: An increase in fire weather is expected in a warming climate, but its translation to fire activity (fire numbers and sizes) remains largely unknown. Additionally, disentangling the extent to which geographic and seasonal extensions as well as intensification contribute to future fire activity remain largely unknown.
Aims: We aimed to assess the impact of future climate change on fire activity in southeastern France and estimate changes in spatial and seasonal distributions.
Methods: We projected future fire activities using a Bayesian modelling framework combined with ensemble climate simulations. Changes in numbers of escaped fires (>1 ha), large fires (>100 ha) and burned area were studied for different emission scenarios or degrees of global warming.
Key results: Fire activity could increase by up to +180% for +4°C of global warming, with large expansions of fire-prone regions and long seasonal lengthenings. Overall, changes will be dominated by intensification within the historical fire niche, representing two-thirds of additional future fire activity, half of this occurring during the high fire season.
Conclusions: This study confirms that major changes in fire niches would be expected in Euro-Mediterranean regions.
Implications: Long-term strategic policies for adapting prevention and suppression resources and ecosystems are needed to account for such changes.
Keywords: climate change, expansion, extension, fire niche, fire risk severity, fire season length, Firelihood, Mediterranean, projections, risk assessement, seasonal, spatial.
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