Recent Tendency of Mongolian Wildland Fire Incidence: Analysis Using MODIS Hotspot and Weather Data

Abstract

Mongolian wildland fires are a human-made disaster like some floods as shown by these fire disasters becoming prominent around the 1990s due to opening up of the country. The worst fire losses were in 1996, costing 192% of the GDP. This study reports recent wildland fire incidence and climate relationships analyzed using NASA-MODIS hotspots (fires) and NOAA weather data. Fires are categorized into spring fires from April to June in pasture areas, summer fires in July and August in forested areas, and autumn fires in September and October in forested areas. Fires frequently occur after 10 rainless days, while several millimeters of daily precipitation reduces the extent of fire. A weeklong effective humidity of below 35% coincided with large fires. In the seven most recent years, average temperatures increased by 3.4°C in July and summer precipitation decreased by about 50%, while the fire disaster intensity increased. The fires were mainly human caused, began at relatively low altitudes after the snow melt in April, and moved to higher-altitude areas in May. From 2001 to 2007, around 30% of forest areas were affected; the Selenge, Khentii, and Dornod provinces were the most fire prone. The severest spring and autumn fires occurred on May 5, 2007 and September 22, 2002.