Landscape-based fire scenarios and fire types in the Ayllón massif (Central Mountain Range, Spain), 19th and 20th centuries

C.R Sequeira,C Montiel-Molina,F.C Rego

doi:10.18172/cig.3796

Abstract

Wildfires have been a major landscape disturbance factor throughout history in inland mountain areas of Spain. This paper aims to understand the interaction of fire regimes and landscape dynamics during the last two centuries within a socio-spatial context. The study area selected for this historical and spatial analysis is the Ayllón massif, in the Central Mountain Range. The theoretical background used to identify the driving forces of fire regime changes over the 19th and 20th centuries in this mountain area includes landscape-based fire scenarios and fire-type concepts. Both concepts have been addressed in recent studies from a spatial planning and fire management approach in an attempt to understand current fire landscapes and wildfire risk. However, this is the first time that these concepts have been applied to show that both spatial and temporal scales are crucial for an understanding of the current wildfire panorama, and that fire history related to landscape dynamics is fundamental in socio-spatial differences in fire regimes.Four variables (fire history, land use, population and settlement system, and forest management) were assessed to define historical landscape-based fire scenarios, and three fire feature variables (fire extent, fire cause, and spatial distribution pattern) were considered to define historical fire-types. We found that the non-linear evolution of fire regimes during the 19th and 20th centuries was determined by fire-type changes according to landscape dynamics. Moreover, population and forest management have been the main driving forces of fire regime tipping points or pyrotransitions. This study validates the hypothesis that fire regime changes are the result of the interaction of fire history and landscape dynamics.

Highlights

Humans and fire have evolved with each other, and in their regular interaction fire has become a risk factor for human society (Pyne, 1997; Scott, 2018)
The local scale has not attracted the attention of many researchers, despite proof of its importance when examining the relationship between fire regime and landscape dynamics (Beilin et al, 2015; Wilbanks et al, 1999)
The vast majority of recent studies have focused on a recent time scale context, regardless of the fact that fire and landscape history are relevant to the current fire risk (Smith et al, 2016) and that a longer perspective is needed to characterize fire regime changes

Summary

Introduction

Humans and fire have evolved with each other, and in their regular interaction fire has become a risk factor for human society (Pyne, 1997; Scott, 2018). New planning and prevention approaches have been introduced into the research agenda, aimed at predicting fire behavior, providing basic information for its control and management (Cissel et al, 1999; Coughlan et al, 2012, 2013; Duane et al, 2015; O’Connor et al, 2011; Silva et al, 2010) These new fire management approaches include concepts such as fire-type and landscape-based fire scenarios (Black et al, 2005; Castellnou et al, 2010, 2009; Costa et al, 2011; LaCroix et al, 2006; Murphy et al, 2013; Pérez et al, 1998), formulated in pyrogeography, which attempts to examine the human-fire relationship from an holistic perspective (Bowman, 2015; Keeley et al, 2011; Roos et al, 2014). Even though no specific data on fire behavior is available before the statistical period (which makes it difficult to apply the fire-type method), fires recorded pre-1968 do share two common features: extent and fire cause (Montiel-Molina, 2013), applicable to the definition of the historical fire-type concept

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