Conservation Threats Due to Human‐Caused Increases in Fire Frequency in Mediterranean‐Climate Ecosystems

Syphard, Alexandra D.; Radeloff, Volker C.; Hawbaker, Todd J.; Stewart, Susan I.

doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01223.x

Cited by 209 publications

(146 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(69 reference statements)

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“…However, studies on high population density in large urban areas, such as those by GonzalezOlabarria et al (2011) for north-eastern Spain, Argañaraz et al (2015) for Argentina, and Beccari et al (2015) for northern Italy, found low fire occurrence. This may have been caused by the lower availability of fuel to support HCFs in highly developed urban areas (Syphard et al 2007(Syphard et al , 2009Price and Bradstock 2014). Donoghue and Main (1985) observed an increase of HCF occurrence related only to non-metropolitan population density.…”

Section: Predictors For Long-term Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human-caused fire occurrence modelling in perspective: a review

Costafreda-Aumedes

Comas

Vega‐García

2017

Int. J. Wildland Fire

122

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Abstract. The increasing global concern about wildfires, mostly caused by people, has triggered the development of human-caused fire occurrence models in many countries. The premise is that better knowledge of the underlying factors is critical for many fire management purposes, such as operational decision-making in suppression and strategic prevention planning, or guidance on forest and land-use policies. However, the explanatory and predictive capacity of fire occurrence models is not yet widely applied to the management of forests, fires or emergencies. In this article, we analyse the developments in the field of human-caused fire occurrence modelling with the aim of identifying the most appropriate variables and methods for applications in forest and fire management and civil protection. We stratify our worldwide analysis by temporal dimension (short-term and long-term) and by model output (numeric or binary), and discuss management applications. An attempt to perform a meta-analysis based on published models proved limited because of non-equivalence of the metrics and units of the estimators and outcomes across studies, the diversity of models and the lack of information in published works.

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Section: Predictors For Long-term Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human-caused fire occurrence modelling in perspective: a review

Costafreda-Aumedes

Comas

Vega‐García

2017

Int. J. Wildland Fire

122

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“…Intensive agriculture leads to landscape fragmentation (Guyette et al, 2002;Syphard et al, 2009), which inhibits fire spread by disrupting fuel continuity. Grazing also removes fuel, but fire has been used as part of the management of both croplands and grazing lands (Pyne, 2012;Fernandes et al, 2013).…”

Section: Environmental Predictor Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal relationships versus emergent patterns in the global controls of fire frequency

et al. 2014

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Abstract. Global controls on month-by-month fractional burnt area (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005) were investigated by fitting a generalised linear model (GLM) to Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) data, with 11 predictor variables representing vegetation, climate, land use and potential ignition sources. Burnt area is shown to increase with annual net primary production (NPP), number of dry days, maximum temperature, grazing-land area, grass/shrub cover and diurnal temperature range, and to decrease with soil moisture, cropland area and population density. Lightning showed an apparent (weak) negative influence, but this disappeared when pure seasonal-cycle effects were taken into account. The model predicts observed geographic and seasonal patterns, as well as the emergent relationships seen when burnt area is plotted against each variable separately. Unimodal relationships with mean annual temperature and precipitation, population density and gross domestic product (GDP) are reproduced too, and are thus shown to be secondary consequences of correlations between different controls (e.g. high NPP with high precipitation; low NPP with low population density and GDP). These findings have major implications for the design of global fire models, as several assumptions in current models -most notably, the widely assumed dependence of fire frequency on ignition rates -are evidently incorrect.

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“…The presence of humans in the landscape can alter patterns of ignitions (Penman et al 2013a;Collins et al 2015;Mann et al 2016), often resulting in an overall increase in the number of ignitions per year (Syphard et al 2007;Syphard et al 2009;Plucinski et al 2014;Price 2015). Fragmentation and manipulation of forests through expansion of agriculture and human settlements has created discontinuities in fuels thereby influencing fire spread patterns (Finney 2007;Price and Bradstock 2010;Salis et al 2014) and surface fire behaviour (Agee et al 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is there an inherent conflict in managing fire for people and conservation?

Bentley

Penman

2017

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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Abstract. Wildfires are a natural disturbance in many ecosystems, creating challenges for land management agencies who need to simultaneously reduce risk to people and maintain ecological values. Here we use the PHOENIX RapidFire fire behaviour simulator to compare fuel treatment strategies that meet the twin objectives of reducing wildfire risk to human settlements and a fire sensitive endangered species, the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) in south-eastern Australia. The local koala population is in decline and a conservation management plan is being prepared to exclude wildfire for a 10-year period to assist with population recovery. Twelve scenarios developed by the land management agencies were compared using four indicators: wildfire size; burn probability; impact from exposure to fire; and treatment cost. Compared with the current risk setting, three treatment scenarios were found to reduce wildfire size and burn probability concurrently to both people and koalas. These strategies worked by increasing the landscape area treated, which came with increased financial cost. However, the impact from exposure to fire for both property and koala habitat remains high. Additional complementary strategies beyond landscape fuel reductions are needed to reduce impact from exposure in the event of a wildfire.

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Conservation Threats Due to Human‐Caused Increases in Fire Frequency in Mediterranean‐Climate Ecosystems

Abstract: Periodic wildfire is an important natural process inPalabras Clave: cobertura de suelo, densidad poblacional, fuego, Mediterráneo, MODIS, percepción remota

Cited by 209 publications

References 54 publications

Human-caused fire occurrence modelling in perspective: a review

Human-caused fire occurrence modelling in perspective: a review

Causal relationships versus emergent patterns in the global controls of fire frequency

Is there an inherent conflict in managing fire for people and conservation?

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