Fire Activity in Mediterranean Forests (The Algerian Case)

Abstract

Algeria has high wildfire activity, albeit restricted to the northern coastal fringe. However, no study has investigated why fire is restricted to that area, and what combination of factors explains the occurrence of wildfires. Here, we describe the current fire regime of Northern Algeria from 2000 to 2019 and we correlate fire activity to a range of environmental and anthropic drivers. We found a strong north–south gradient in fire occurrence: it is maximal in the high-fueled (productive) oak forests of Northern Algeria with high annual rainfall amount, whereas it is fuel-limited in the South due to semi-arid conditions. We determined that fire is nearly absent where the bioclimate is subarid or arid, due to the steppic vegetation with summer Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values below 0.35. Therefore, fire occupies a narrow niche in space (the humid and subhumid areas with high productivity) and in time as most fires occur in summer after the high rainfalls from fall to spring that promote fuel growth. Humans also play a role as fire hotspots are concentrated in croplands and in built-up areas with high human density and infrastructures mixed with shrublands and forests. We discuss how the ongoing climate changes and the desertification progressing towards the North of Algeria may finally restrict forests to a narrow fringe providing less and less ecological services to the Algerian people.

Naïve Bayes Assessment of Mediterranean Basin Ecosystem Wildfires Associated With Vegetation Vigor in August 2021

“…Occurrences of wildfires within vegetation covers account for 48.42% of burnt areas that have high NDVI in this study indicates high fuel biomass due to the high NDVI that can make the vegetation more prone to the wildfires (Curt et al 2020). In contrast, occurrences of wildfires within vegetation covers that have low NDVI account for 51.57% were related to the vegetation vigor.…”

“…These locations were known prone to the wildfires and fires have happened since 2010 and continued in 2012. The available research on wildfire in this region is only several studies by Alganci and Sertel (2010), Belgherbi et al (2018) and very recent by Curt et al (2020). While wildfire assessments and information based on the recent 2021’s wildfire events is still limited.…”

Pyrogeography across the western Palaearctic: A diversity of fire regimes

“…I use large regions with different environmental conditions and dominant vegetations (ecoregions; Figure 1a) to study variation in the fire regime across the western Palaearctic, including temporal trends in fire size for each of the ecoregions. Although fires in the European Mediterranean area are relatively well known, our knowledge of other Palaearctic regions is fragmentary (e.g., Belhadj‐Khedher et al, 2020; Chergui et al, 2018; Curt et al, 2020; Dubinin et al, 2011).…”

Assessing the performance of MODIS and VIIRS active fire products in the monitoring of wildfires: a case study in Turkey

“…MODIS and VIIRS S-NPP fire products have been widely used in the detection and monitoring of fires in grasslands, peatlands, agricultural and herbaceous areas (Zhang et al 2017a, Sofan et al 2020, Wickramasinghe et al 2020). Although they have some limitations in the detection of wildfires in forested lands due to closed canopy (Giglio et al 2006) and smoke (Giglio et al 2020), many studies have been conducted to assess and monitor wildfires in different forest ecosystems worldwide (Huesca et al 2009, Curt et al 2020, Kganyago & Shikwambana 2020. Moreover, these products have been used for the model validation in forest fire risk assessment studies in forested areas (Colak & Sunar 2020, Parajuli et al 2020).…”