Wildfires under climate change: exotic pine afforestations in a flammable landscape

FRANCO, M. GUADALUPE; BARBERA, IVAN; SRUR, ANA M; PARITSIS, JUAN

Barranquilla

Simposio; First Connections to Sustain Science in Latin America; 2024

In northwest Argentine Patagonia, exotic conifer plantations that are prone to experiencing wildfires have been establishing since the last century to provide the local forest industry. In a touristic region, with towns and villages growing in a matrix of native forests, conflicts over land use and a natural proneness to wildfires, the current promotion of afforestations is usually controversial. To achieve better planning and in order to reduce economic, social and environmental losses, it is necessary to know which plantations are more vulnerable to fire in relation to their location and management. In this study we used a database of fires that occurred between 1999 and 2022 in the Andean zone (39 to 44° S) together with the National Inventory of Forest Plantations, and a election of environmental and anthropic variables. We adjusted Random Forests type models to evaluate the influence of these predictor variables on fire activity in plantations and predict the fire probability in future scenarios of climate change and expansion of the forested area. The most important predictor variables at the regional level were the surrounding vegetation, and average annual rainfall and temperatures. However, the relative importance of the predictor variables varied among regions with contrasting environmental and human characteristics. This project has direct implications for the forestry industry sector, carbon emissions, and forest-urban interface fires. The data generated on the geographic characteristics that make a plantation more or less susceptible to burning are directly applicable to existing and future plantations in Patagonia.