EUFIRELAB: Euro-Mediterranean Wildland Fire Laboratory, a wall-less laboratory for Wildland Fire Sciences and Technologies in the Euro-Mediterranean Region, towards methods for investigating on wildland fire causes. D 05-02

Systematic and reliable information on fire causes is necessary in order to better understand the socio-economic factors related with fire occurrence in Euro-Mediterranean countries. The first section of this report includes some reflections about the importance of having accurate and reliable information on wildfire causes: knowledge on the mechanisms behind fire occurrence is expected to improve wildland fire management. However, this fact contrast with the limited information available on fire causes in most European countries/regions. The unknown cause is still too frequent in many wildfire statistics. A review of the different sources of information regarding fire causes at European level is included in this report. Information availability is analysed using as an example official fire databases from three countries: Spain, France and Italy. A spatial and temporal analysis of the different typologies of causes identified in each of those countries is also included. A set of tables/graphs elaborated using the information available in fire statistics serve to illustrate the text. Analysis of the different methods to predict human-caused fires and its usefulness in fire management are reviewed with some specific examples. Finally, a review of the different methods to investigate wildland fire causes is included.