Influence of geographic and meteorological factors in fire generation in las Tunas province

Abstract

Due to the repercussions of fires, it is necessary to know the territorial particularities that favor their emergence and dispersion. Because of its meteorological characteristics, Las Tunas is a vulnerable province to the occurrence of fires. For this reason, this study intends to relate the occurrence and magnitude of fires with the geographical and meteorological conditions of Las Tunas and Puerto Padre municipalities in Las Tunas province, Cuba, in the period 2008-2012. For this purpose, 249 fires were analyzed along with the behavior of meteorological variables. There were found differences among the municipalities regarding the occurrence of fires, the areas affected and the factors related to the spreading. For the case of small fires, it was verified the relationship between meteorological variables and the area affected by fires, although the correlation values were not high. The variables with greater influence, as it was expected, were those related to the moisture of the combustible materials the accumulated of precipitations at 15 and 20 days before each fire and the relative humidity. It was possible to group successfully the number of fires and affected area with respect to different ranges of the meteorological variables, obtaining qualitative criteria of fire risk.