The Predictability of the Synoptic-Scale Fire Weather Conditions during the 2018 Mati Wildfire

Abstract

Forecasting and characterizing fire weather conditions over a region days in advance is of great importance for developing early warning systems and supporting effective wildfire management. Furthermore, it is important for increasing awareness and preparedness of all the involved entities, including both the public and practitioners. In addition, considering climate projections over the Mediterranean, which indicate an environment more conducive to wildfire activity, the need for timely forecasting of extreme fire weather days becomes increasingly urgent. In this work we present an application of the newly developed fire weather forecasting framework that employs the concept of critical fire weather patterns on the 2018 Mati wildfire. Within our fire weather forecasting framework, we assign the large-scale circulation pattern to one of the predefined critical fire weather patterns of Greece which are associated with different levels of fire danger based on the dominating fire weather conditions and expected fire behavior. For the purpose of this study, we use historical forecast data to assess the predictability of the synoptic-scale fire weather conditions using the critical fire weather patterns, and we discuss the main advantages of the presented forecasting framework. This fire weather forecasting framework is applied operationally by the METEO Unit of the National Observatory of Athens within the frame of the “FLAME” project since the 2022 fire season in Greece.

Keywords

• critical fire weather patterns
• fire weather
• forecasting
• fire danger
• early warning