Pyromes of Chile

A vector layer of fire regions has been developed for all of mainland Chile, identifying areas with homogeneous characteristics in terms of landscape, vegetation, and climate, where fire behavior shows similarities in terms of fuel availability and propagation. For its delineation, the vegetation classification proposed by Luebert and Pliscoff (2006), updated in 2017 and later adapted in 2022 to the International Vegetation Classification (IVC), was used. This adaptation allowed linking Chilean vegetation units to the macrogroup and formation class levels of the IVC, facilitating the integration of this information into international studies on fire dynamics.

Additionally, the climatic classification of Chile developed by Sarricolea, Herrera-Ossandón, and Meseguer-Ruiz (2016), based on the Köppen regionalization, was incorporated, enabling the consideration of the climate's influence on fire distribution and behavior. Based on both inputs, regions with homogeneous and comparable conditions were defined, respecting the peculiarities of the terrain and clearly differentiating between the mountainous areas of the Andes, the coast, and the central valley. This layer results in a total of 38 fire regions, with the central Chile area being the one with the greatest variety.