Forest fire hazard associated with climatic factors in Ecuador
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Abstract
Wildfires yield severe impacts in Ecuador. The Ministry of Environment of Ecuador declared that wildfires destroyed 21,570 hectares in this country in 2012. The same fire season cost to the Metropolitan District of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, approximately 50 million dollars. In spite of the losses that wildfires produce, it is still unknown how climate influences fire occurrences in Ecuador. This is the first investigation about fire weather in the tropical Andes. This research quantifies wildfire danger as a function of meteorological variables. The investigation used the McArthur’s Forest Fire Danger Index. Since there is no local fire weather index, the McArthur’s metric was considered a suitable choice because it was designed for Eucalyptus forests, which are dominant in wildfire-prone regions in Ecuador. This research concluded that the McArthur’s Forest Fire Danger Index is indeed a useful metric to evaluate wildfire risk in the Ecuadorian Andes. Using this index, the results show with a quantitative approach that the fire season in this region spans from July to November
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