Forest Fires in Europe 2007

Abstract

The long time series of forest fire data available for these 5 southern countries (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece) justifies a separate analysis as it has been the case in previous reports. During 2007, fires in these 5 countries burned a total are of 574 361 hectares, which is well above the average for the last 28 years. On the other hand, the number of fires that occured (42 259) is below the average for the last 28 years (see Table 1 for details). Figure 1a shows the total burnt area per year in the five Southern Member States since 1980. The statistics vary considerably from one year to the next, which clearly indicates how much the burnt area depends on seasonal metereological conditions.