Fire Scenarios in Spain: A Territorial Approach to Proactive Fire Management in the Context of Global Change

Abstract

Humans and fire form a coupled and co-evolving natural-human system in Mediterranean-climate ecosystems. In this context, recent trends in landscape change, such as urban sprawl or the abandoning of agricultural and forest land management in line with new models of economic development and lifestyles, are leading to new fire scenarios. A fire scenario refers to the contextual factors of a fire regime, i.e., the environmental, socio-economic and policy drivers of wildfire initiation and propagation on different spatial and temporal scales. This is basically a landscape concept linking territorial dynamics (related to ecosystem evolution and settlement patterns) with a fire regime (ignition causes; spread patterns; fire frequency, severity, extent and seasonality). The aim of this article is to identify and characterize these land-based fire scenarios in Spain on a national and regional scale, using a GIS-based methodology to perform a spatial analysis of the area attributes of homogenous fire spread patterns. To do this, the main variables considered are: land use/land cover, fuel load and recent fire history. The final objective is to reduce territorial vulnerability to forest wildfires and facilitate the adaptation of fire policies and land management systems to current challenges of preparedness and uncertainty management.

Paleofire Dynamics in Central Spain during the Late Holocene: The Role of Climatic and Anthropogenic Forcing

“…salzmannii (Dunal) Franco) reaching the treeline. The Gredos range has historically been one of the "hot" point of forests fires in Spain (Montiel & Galiana, 2016). On the one hand, there is a frequency of storms with large electrical apparatus due to the topographical characteristics of these mountains, their orientation and insolation, and their situation of obstacle between the two aforementioned plateaus; and, on the other hand, it is necessary to consider the great expansion that are having during the last 50 years the second-residence urbanizations, tourism, and mountain's sports, thanks to the forest landscape and the lush nature of the Gredos range (Galiana, 2012).…”

“…In addition to natural fires, intentional burning of the forest was one of the usual management techniques employed by prehistoric societies (Naveh, 1975). In fact, it could be said that humans and fire constitute a coevolutionary system in Mediterranean high-mountain areas Montiel & Galiana, 2016). Fire intervals are frequently <100 years in dry biomes such as the Mediterranean region and can even be <30 years .…”

Recognizing Women Leaders in Fire Science: Revisited

“…Her notable works include an assessment of polices and best practices of fire use in Europe as part of the FIRE PARADOX integrated project [440,441]. Her recent works include reconstructing fire records from charcoal records and tree-ring datasets [442], and the assessment of different fire scenarios in Spain [443].…”

Have Historical Land Use/Land Cover Changes Triggered a Fire Regime Shift in Central Spain?

“…Fire is one of the main natural disturbances that shape the landscape, and landscape, combined with weather and climatic conditions, is the main driver of fire behavior [1][2][3]. Yet, while fire has been largely studied as a landscape disturbance factor [4], landscape influence on fire regimes has not received the same attention [5,6].…”