Climate and weather play an important role in shaping fire activity patterns by controlling fuel productivity and fire spread, respectively. Additionally, climate is a key factor controlling primary productivity while different climate zones are expected to support different vegetation formations, that on their turn, include different fuel types. The use, therefore, of an underlying phytogeographical framework would provide more comprehensive outputs in exploring fire activity patterns at national scales, instead of using administrative units that could include various types of non-ecological divisions. Within this concept, we examined the recent fire activity of the main forest formations occurring in Greece and we explored their relationships with various weather parameters and indexes. Correlations of number of fires with weather variables, especially among the vegetation formations that summarize most of the human influence were lax, yet burned area showed significant correlations mainly with fire season precipitation totals. The precipitation related variables generally outperformed the temperature-related variables in correlating with both number of fires and burned area. Climatic indexes, which embody the combined effects of precipitation and air temperature, reflected improved correlations, but not to the extent that could allow for the promotion of their use in further modeling.
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Citation
Xystrakis F, Koutsias N (2013). Differences of fire activity and their underlying factors among vegetation formations in Greece. iForest 6: 132-140. - doi: 10.3832/ifor0837-006
Academic Editor
Marco Borghetti
Paper history
Received: Oct 25, 2012
Accepted: Nov 23, 2012
First online: Apr 08, 2013
Publication Date: Jun 01, 2013
Publication Time: 4.53 months
© SISEF - The Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology 2013
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