Abstract
Abstract. Current trends in the Mediterranean climate, and more specifically in Greece, indicate longer and more intense summer droughts that even extend out of season. In connection to this, the frequency of forest fire occurrence and intensity is on the rise. In the present study, the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) is used in order to investigate the relationship between fire risk and meteorological conditions in Greece. FWI is a meteorologically based index designed in Canada and used worldwide, including the Mediterranean Basin, to estimate fire danger in a generalised fuel type based solely on weather observations. Here, an evaluation of the index is initially performed for the Greek territory using fire observations that cover a 15 yr period. Three critical fire risk threshold values are established for the area of Greece based on daily mean meteorological data: FWI = 15, FWI = 30 and FWI = 45, increasing from the northwest to the southeast. Subsequently, a regional climate model is employed providing input for the FWI system to investigate the impacts of climate change on fire risk for two future time periods, 2021–2050 and 2071–2100, under the A1B emissions scenario. Days with critical fire risk are expected to increase by as many as 50 days per year by the end of the century.
Highlights
Forest fires constitute a major environmental and socioeconomic issue in the Mediterranean
The Fire Weather Index (FWI) model is non-dimensional, based on physical processes and has been used at several locations, including the Mediterranean Basin (Viegas et al, 2004; Moriondo et al, 2006, Carvalho et al, 2008; Dimitrakopoulos et al, 2011b; Giannakopoulos et al, 2012); since 2007 the FWI has been adopted at the EU level by the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. This was done following a test phase of 5 yr, during which different fire danger methods were implemented in parallel by the EFFIS, until the FWI was selected as the method to assess the fire danger level in a harmonised way throughout Europe
The Greek territory was divided into 13 sub-regions, equal to the number of the available meteorological stations, covering about 106 ha each, and each local forest service office was assigned to its adjacent meteorological station
Summary
Forest fires constitute a major environmental and socioeconomic issue in the Mediterranean. The rise in extreme weather events is expected to have a great impact on forest fire vulnerability (Beniston, 2003) It has not yet been clarified as to whether the meteorological conditions or the landscape pattern fundamentally determine fire risk and spread (Moreira et al, 2011), it seems that the climatic and weather conditions in the Mediterranean have a profound effect on fire occurrence (Koutsias et al, 2013). This was done following a test phase of 5 yr, during which different fire danger methods were implemented in parallel by the EFFIS, until the FWI was selected as the method to assess the fire danger level in a harmonised way throughout Europe It seems a sensible basis for exploring the mechanisms of fire risk and fire risk changes in Greece. The study aims to establish a relationship between FWI and fire risk and, as a step, to estimate the projected changes in fire risk driven by climate change
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