Forest fires in Italy - Analysis of trends based on 50 years of observations

Abstract

In Italy, starting from late spring and throughout the summer, the public debate focuses on the phenomenon of forest fires. For some years now, a further issue has been included in the debate: the anthropogenic climate change, as a contributing cause of exacerbation (or extremization) of the forest fire phenomenon. Italy, like other countries in the Mediterranean basin, has always been affected by forest fires, albeit with different intensity and frequency depending on the Region. In this study, on one hand, I analyze the dynamics of forest fires starting from 1970 and up to 2021 and, on the other, I try to highlight the ongoing trends. From the observation of the time series it can be seen that over 52 years forest fires in Italy have been quite variable. Overall, the worst period was from 1970 to 1995, while in the most recent period (1996-2021) an improvement was recorded. In the long period, the observed variables showed significant decreasing trends in terms of average, while in the short term showed less defined trends. For both the annual burnt area and number of fires, there is no tendency towards exacerbation, neither in the long nor in the short period. In contrast, the burnt area per fire shows a significant increasing trend of extremization in the most recent period (1996-2021), i.e., a lower number of fires caused larger burnt areas. As highlighted by the results, the recent increasing trend of extremization can not be neglegted, however, with respect to its origin, the co-occurrence of independent factors can not be excluded. Likewise, even where no significant trend has been detected, the presence of an underlying climatic forcing cannot be ruled out.

Keywords

• forest fires
• anthropogenic climate change
• time series
• trend
• extreme events