Linking the future likelihood of large fires to occur on mountain slopes with fuel connectivity and topography

Marco Conedera (), Jeremy Feusi (), Gianni Boris Pezzatti () and Patrik Krebs ()
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Marco Conedera: Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
Jeremy Feusi: Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
Gianni Boris Pezzatti: Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL
Patrik Krebs: Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2024, vol. 120, issue 5, No 26, 4657-4673

Abstract: Abstract In the long run, ongoing climate change is expected to alter fuel production as well as the frequency and severity of fire weather, which may result in an unprecedented frequency of extreme fire events. In this paper we propose a simplified and spatially explicit method to assess the probability of experiencing large fires, based on topography (slope length) as well as extent and aggregation of the forested area (fuel connectivity). We considered 21 homogeneous pyroregions covering entire Switzerland as a study case and computed the length of the upslope paths within the forested areas, simulating ignition points on a systematic 100 × 100 m square grid. We then compared the obtained path lengths for each pyroregion with selected historical large forest fire statistics (e.g., mean area of the largest 5% of fires, maximum burnt area per fire) collected over the course of the last 30 years. This resulted in rather high R2 values, ranging from 0.558 to 0.651. The proposed approach was shown to allow for an easy identification and geo-localization of potential hotspots in terms of the likelihood for large fires to occur in mountainous regions, which is a prerequisite for a targeted planning of fire management measures aimed at preventing large fires and related post-fire gravitative natural hazards.

Keywords: Steepest path; Slope-driven fires; Megafires; Fire behavior; Burnt area; Switzerland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s11069-023-06395-y

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