Is landscape a driver of short-term wildfire recurrence

L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore http://www.tandfonline.comRepeated burning in a short return period (< 3–5 years) may significantly contribute to land degradation in Mediterranean countries. We apply logistic regression analysis to model spatial relationships between reburning and site (topographic) and landscape-level factors (land use pattern); forest areas burned twice at least between 2006 and 2009 in the Italian peninsula are used as a case study. Few landscape factors prove to be correlated with the probability of fire recurrence, and the overall logistic regression model explains 24% of the variation in the fire recurrence. This fact is not surprising since human factors are known to be the biggest determinant of wildfire events in Mediterranean countries such as Italy. Nonetheless, findings from this exploratory study prove to be qualitatively helpful to identify at least landscape drivers, easily quantifiable and available on a national scale, significantly affecting short-term fire recurrence (i.e. slope roughness, exposure, distance from the nearest water body, pre-fire dominant forest type)