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Drivers of forest fire occurrence in the cultural landscape of Central Europe

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Abstract

Context

Wildfires in temperate Central Europe have traditionally been perceived as a mere consequence of human activity without any relevance to natural forest development, despite their documented frequent occurrence. As a result, knowledge about local fire ecology and patterns of wildfire occurrence in the landscape is lacking.

Objectives

We aimed to reveal the factors influencing the spatial distribution of forest fires in the Czech Republic as a model area for the broader region. Specifically, we aimed to (1) find out which factors influence the occurrence and frequency of the forest fires at the country scale and in a selected fire-prone region; (2) examine the relationship of lightning strikes and their polarity with wildfire incidence; (3) identify the conditions determining areas with naturally driven fire-prone conditions.

Methods

We took data on 15,985 wildfire records and explored their spatial distribution using GIS layers of human, topographic, climatic and vegetation composition factors. We analysed the data using GLM and hierarchical partitioning methods.

Results

Wildfire occurrence was controlled mostly by environmental factors whereas wildfire frequency was strongly driven by human factors. In the selected fire-prone region, the effect of environmental factors was even more pronounced and wildfire frequency was also driven, albeit marginally, by lightning strikes of positive polarity.

Conclusion

The pattern of wildfire occurrence in the Czech Republic was similar also to those from regions where wildfire is considered a natural part of local ecosystems. We identified the areas with natural fire-prone conditions which probably led to the development of local fire-adapted ecosystems.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (Grant 14-22658S) and by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (long-term research development project RVO67985939). We further thank Martin Weiser for the help with data analyses, Martin Kopecký for the help with GIS and Frederick Rooks for language advice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Zámek 1, 252 43, Průhonice, Czech Republic

    Martin Adámek, Věroslava Hadincová & Jan Wild

  2. The Forest Management Institute, Nábřežní 1326, 250 01, Brandýs nad Labem, Czech Republic

    Zuzana Jankovská

  3. Department of Forest Protection and Game Management, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Zemědělská 3, 61300, Brno, Czech Republic

    Emanuel Kula

  4. Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Kamýcká 129, 165 21, Prague, Czech Republic

    Jan Wild

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  1. Martin Adámek
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  3. Věroslava Hadincová
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Correspondence to Martin Adámek.

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Adámek, M., Jankovská, Z., Hadincová, V. et al. Drivers of forest fire occurrence in the cultural landscape of Central Europe. Landscape Ecol 33, 2031–2045 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-018-0712-2

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