Harmonized fire agencies dataset across the Southwestern Mediterranean basin

Recommended citation

Galizia, L. F., Curt, T., Barbero, R., and Rodrigues, M.: Assessing the accuracy of remotely sensed fire datasets across the southwestern Mediterranean Basin, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 73–86, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-73-2021, 2021.

Use of the dataset and full description

Before using the dataset, please read this document and the article describing the methodology. 

Abstract

This harmonized database (GBD) was constructed from multiple regional/national fire agencies datasets including fire records from Portugal, Spain, France, and Sardinia in Italy. We extracted, for each agency dataset, the following information: day of ignition, fire size, and location of the fire. To ensure consistency across regions, we provide here the overlapping record period among the datasets, i.e., 2005–2015. Small fires (<1ha) were discarded to ensure the coherence of the analysis since these were not reported systematically by AG. We aggregated datasets onto a 0.25° grid (≈ 25 km) and at a monthly scale, setting a common ground across the Southwestern Mediterranean basin. The harmonized GBD database contains 95,561 fire records, including only events that required a firefighting response (i.e., disregarding agricultural and prescribed fires).

Files included in the dataset

The repository comprises two files. The aggregated fire events come in a csv file while the study domain comes in a shapefile file.

AG_fires.csv: Harmonized fire agencies (GBD) datasets aggregated at spatio-temporal scales. Coordinate reference system in WGS 84 (EPSG:4326).

“ID”: Fire event ID.

“X”: X coordinate (Longitude) of the center of each grid.

“Y”: Y coordinate (Latitude) of the center of each grid.

“Date”: Date of fire event in Year-month.

“NF”: Total number of fire events in the grid.

“BA”: Total burned area (ha) in the grid.

Study_domain.zip: Spatial extent of the study domain in ESRI Shapefile. Coordinate reference system in WGS 84 (EPSG:4326).

Agencies data sources

All regional/national datasets are open access except EGIF (Spain) that is available upon request.

DECIF:  http://www2.icnf.pt/portal/florestas/dfci/inc/estat-sgif

EGIF:  https://www.mapa.gob.es/va/desarrollo-rural/estadisticas/Incendios_default.aspx

Prométhée: https://www.promethee.com/

Regione Sardegna:  http://webgis2.regione.sardegna.it/download/ 

Acknowledgments

The ground-based data used in this work have been collected several from regional/national fire agencies. In France, the original fire data was collected from the official database (Prométhée) for forest fires in the French Mediterranean area. The Centre for National Information on Forest Fires (CCINIF), agency responsible for coordinating general forest fires statistics in Spain (EGIF) within the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and demographic challenge provided the original fire data at the country level. In Portugal, the original fire data was collected from the Special Forest Fire Fighting Agency (DECIF, Dispositivo Especial de Combate a Incêndios Florestais) a publicly available fire database in the country level. In Sardinia, the original fire data was extracted from the Regione Sardegna Geoportale the official mapping agency of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia in Italy, which provides datasets at the regional level.