Large wildland fires and extreme temperatures in Sardinia (Italy)

Abstract

Heat-wave events are commonly recognized as adverse impacts on agriculture, forests, and economic activities. Several studies showed that future climate changes in the western Mediterranean Basin will lead to an increase in extreme weather events, mainly in the summer season. For this reason, it is crucial to improve our knowledge and investigate the effects of extreme temperature events on wildland fire activity. This work analyses the relation between high temperature days (air temperature higher than 25°C at 850hPa) and large wildland fires in Sardinia (Italy) during 1991-2009 period and the influence of high temperature days on large wildland fires was remarkable. The results showed that neither the number of fires nor the area burned decreased under high temperature days, although a decrease of both indicators was observed on the other days. Additionally, the average size of fires, the probability of large fire occurrence, the daily area burned and daily number of fires resulted higher in high temperature days.

Keywords

• Wildfires
• Temperature
• Extreme
• Weather