Assessing the role played by meteorological conditions on the interannual variability of fire activity in four subregions of Iberia

Abstract

Background The Iberian Peninsula is recurrently affected by severe wildfires resulting from an interplay of human activities, landscape features and atmospheric conditions. Aims The role played by atmospheric conditions on wildfire activity in 2001–2020 is assessed in four pyroregions of the Iberian Peninsula. Methods Wildfire activity is characterised by Fire Radiative Power (FRP) and meteorological danger is rated by the Fire Weather Index (FWI). The distribution of log10FRP in each pyroregion consists of a truncated lognormal central body with Generalised Pareto distributions as tails, and the model is improved using FWI as covariate. Synthetic time series of total annual FRP are generated using the models with and without FWI as covariate, and compared against observed FRP. Key results Pyroregions NW, N, SW and E present increases of 1, 5, 6 and 7% in interannual explained variance of FRP when progressing from the model without to that with FWI as covariate. Conclusions The models developed characterise the role of meteorological conditions on fire activity in the Iberian Peninsula, and are especially valuable when comparing expected impacts for different scenarios of climate change. Implications The largest effects of atmospheric conditions on fire activity are in regions of the IP where the strongest impact of climate change is expected.