The Relationship of Forest Fires to Agro-Forestry and Socio-Economic Parameters in Portugal

Abstract

Forest fires are increasing every year in Portugal. Trying to understand more about their causes, we collected available forest fires data, as well as agroforestry and socio-economic parameters considered to be closely related to them, in all the 274 administrative regions (councils). Using multivariate analysis (principal components analysis and classification) we established 8 groups of councils defined by the identity of response of the analysed variables. We were, therefore, able to determine which parameters mainly influenced each group, and that knowledge could be a starting point to fire prevention.