[ad_1]
Arson and burning and burning were the main causes of forest fires registered this year and investigated until September 15, according to the latest report from the Institute for Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF).
The ICNF interim report on rural fires establishes that the most frequent causes of fires, until September 15, were “attributable arsonism” (36%), followed by burning and burning (27%) and re-ignition (12%).
The ICNF highlights that, between January 1 and September 15, 8,807 fires were registered, of which 5,444 were investigated, which represents 62% of all fires and is responsible for 37% of the burned area.
The document indicates that, of these fires, the investigation allowed to attribute a cause to 3,502 fires (64% of the investigated fires and responsible for 33% of the total burned area).
The report indicates that, between January 1 and September 15, the 8,807 rural fires caused 66,116 hectares (ha) of burned area, between settlements (33,185 ha), scrublands (26,171 ha) and agriculture (6,760 ha).
According to provisional data, the area burned has increased this year by approximately 60% compared to the same period in 2019, and as of September 15, another 25,000 hectares of forest had been burned.
In turn, 829 fewer forest fires were triggered this year (8.6%) than in 2019.
“The year 2020 presents, until September 15, the second lowest value in number of fires and the sixth lowest value of burned area, since 2010,” the report reads.
The fire that consumed the most burned area this year was the one that occurred on September 13 in the municipality of Proença-a-Nova (Castelo Branco district), where 16,510 hectares of forests were burned.
The ICNF highlights that fires with a burned area of less than one hectare are the most frequent, representing 86% of the total, and that until September 15 there were 11 fires with a burned area greater than or equal to 1000 hectares, which more “bigger” fires are considered.
In turn, there were 62 “large fires”, those with a burned area of 100 hectares or more, which resulted in 56,223 hectares of burned area, about 85% of the total burned area.
The ICNF also highlights that the highest number of fires occurred in the districts of Porto (2,355), Braga (943) and Aveiro (617), but mostly they were “small” fires and did not exceed one hectare of burned area.
The most affected district in burned area was Castelo Branco, with 25,872 hectares, about 39% of the total burned area until September 15, followed by Bragança, with 6,414 hectares, and Vila Real (5,440 hectares).
According to provisional data, the month of July was the month with the highest number of rural fires, with a total of 3,112, but with regard to the burned area, September was the month that registered the largest burned area this year, with a total of 27,492 hectares.
The ICNF report concluded that the area burned this year is what was “expected” given the severity of the verified weather.
[ad_2]
