Affiliation:
1. Laboratory of Ecology and Sustainable Development, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Nangui Abrogoua University, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
2. Atmospheric Physics Laboratory, Faculty of Structure of Matter and Technology Sciences, Félix Houphouët Boigny University of Cocody, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Abstract
Biomass burning has become more frequent and widespread worldwide, with a significant proportion occurring in tropical Africa. Fire dynamics have been generally studied at global or regional scales. At local scale, however, fire impacts can be severe or catastrophic, suggesting local analyses are warranted. This study aimed to characterise the spatio-temporal variations of vegetation fires and identify the main fire hotspots in Côte d’Ivoire, a country of West Africa, one of the world’s burn centres. Using MODISderived fire data over a 10-year period (2007–2016), the number of fire days, active fires and fire density were assessed across the entire country. In the southern part dominated by forests, fire activity was low. Three main fire hotspots were identified between 2°30’–8°30’W and 7°00’–10°30’N in the North-West, North-East and Central areas all dominated by savannas. In these areas, Bafing, Bounkani and Hambol regions recorded the highest fire activity where fire density was 0.4±0.02, 0.28±0.02 and 0.18±0.01 fires/km²/year, respectively. At national scale, the annual fire period stretched from October to April with 91% of fires occurring between December and February, with a peak in January. Over the decade, there was a decreasing trend of fire activity. Fire density also was negatively correlated with rainfall >1000 mm for the synchronic analysis, whereas fire density was positively correlated with rainfall in the previous years. Results suggest that the positive relationship between the previous year’s rainfall and fire activity could operate on a cycle from 1 to 4 years.
Publisher
Academy of Science of South Africa
Subject
General Earth and Planetary Sciences,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Cited by
12 articles.
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