Assessment of fire seasonality, and evaluation of fire-weather relationship, and fire danger models in Italy

The main aim of this work was to improve our understanding of wildfires in the Mediterranean context through the characterization of fire regime and the assessment of the main driving forces on fire occurrence.A preliminary hierarchical cluster analysis, based on the fire occurrence and weather data in the period 1985-2008 has allowed to identify 6 areas homogeneous for fire events/regime and climate. Subsequently, three specific chapters have been developed. In the first chapter, the fire seasonality has been assessed for each area; the analysis also demonstrated that some changes occurring during the examined period. Then, the fire-weather relationships have been characterized. In the last chapter, two common fire danger indexes (the Canadian Fire Weather Index FWI, and the Keetch-Byram Drought Index KBDI) have been used to study the fire danger across Italy and its potential to reproduce the fire occurrence.The results improve our knowledge of wildfire occurrence in Italy. The fire regime under current climate conditions has been characterized with a statistical and descriptive analysis. In addition, the analysis of the relationships between fire occurrence, weather, and fire danger can be usefully applied to assess the impacts of climate changes on fire regimes in Italy.