Assessment of the recurrence interval of wildfires in mainland Portugal and the identification of affected LUC patterns

Wildfires are responsible for major land use and land cover (LUC) changes. These events are frequent and catastrophic in Portugal and are responsible for great damage and loss of human life. In this study, a map to assess the probability of wildfire occurrence (PWO) in mainland Portugal was created for the period 1975-2017 (first half of 2017). The PWO was obtained by the superimposition of all layers by adding all the burned areas for the total period. It was observed that the occurrences and extent of the burned areas are highly variable from year to year. The PWO map was cross-referenced with LUC geoinformation to evaluate the LUC types that were more affected by the wildfires. The results presented and the PWO maps are important for the management and planning of forest areas and for the creation of guidelines to implement preventive and reactive actions in case of wildfires.