Abstract
Increasingly, forest fires are occurring in large parts of the world due to warmer weather, more frequent and severe droughts and continuous changes in land use. In Brazil, the weakening of environmental public policies has further aggravated forest fires with widespread impacts throughout the country. This study aimed to evaluate the association between short-term variations in fire focis by precipitation, temperature in biomes in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul (MS) – Midwest Brazil. Generalized additive negative binomial regression models with distributed nonlinear lag terms were adjusted with daily counts of fire focis as results and total daily precipitation and other meteorological variables as predictors, adjusting for seasonality and trend. In general, higher precipitation was associated with fewer fire focis, with higher relative risks for the cerrado biome for the dry cutting and for higher temperatures the number of fire focis with higher relative risk for the pantanal biome. Stronger associations were observed in dry cutting (winter/spring). It was found that higher temperatures are associated with more fire focis. Fire focis are strongly associated with precipitation and temperature variation, but in opposite directions. Higher precipitation can become more clearly associated with fewer fire focis and higher temperature to more fire focis. If we maintain the burning culture to clear pastures and planting areas, the burnings will become increasingly uncontrollable.
Keywords:
Hot Spots; Precipitation; Temperature; Weather; Risk Assessement; Regression Models; Fire Foci; Burned Area
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