Correlation between Weather Conditions and Burnt Areas in 25 Years of Forest Firefighting by the Fire Brigade

In this paper, research on the relationship between forest fires and meteorology is carried out using simple meteorological variables (temperature, wind, and precipitation) from a few well-selected Greek meteorological stations. The 5 years (1998, 2000, 2007, 2012, and 2021) which recorded burnt areas for more than the 25-year average (37,000 ha) had as a common characteristic, on the one hand, a much drier than usual two-month period (July–August) following a winter period with a shortage of rainfall, and on the other hand a number of days with very high temperatures higher than the average of the last 25 years. The latter implies that average temperatures in all three summer months were at least 1 °C above their normal value. In the years following, the burnt areas were below their average regardless of the precipitation and summer temperature patterns. However, when precipitation during the two-month period (July–August) was two or more times more than normal, fire seasons had, at most, one-third of the 25-year average of burned areas, regardless of the precipitation of the winter periods preceding and summer temperatures in those years. This is very important as already in the early days of each fire season it will be possible to make an estimation of its outcome and to prepare more appropriately when the accuracy of the long-term seasonal forecast of temperature and rainfall anomalies is improved.