The large forest fires in Aragón: brief analysis and retrospective in the context of the 2022 summer
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/pirineos.2024.179002Keywords:
Wildfires, fire regime, ignition source, season 2022Abstract
The summer of 2022 stands out as one of the worst fire seasons in Mediterranean Europe. Recurrent heat waves with temperatures exceeding 40ºC, resulted in large-scale fires, especially in Spain, where fires larger than 30,000 ha were recorded. In Aragon, the year 2022 was also exceptional with 20,260 ha burned, eight times the annual average from 2005-2021, experiencing two of the largest wildfires on record. Large fires in Aragon are mainly of natural origin; however, since 2010 there has been a visible shift towards human-caused fires, a behavior that is accentuated in 2022. The 2022 fire season in Aragon has underscored the need for a better understanding of fire risk and its underlying factors, consistent with the demand by the scientific community for more efficient fuel and land management to cope with future extreme fire events.
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Funding data
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
Grant numbers PID2020-116556RA-I00
Gobierno de Aragón
Grant numbers Geoforest S51_20R/S51_23R
European Regional Development Fund
Grant numbers Geoforest S51_20R/S51_23R
