Vegetation fires in Romania: an overview

ABSTRACT. – The main purpose of the present paper is to explore the current state of knowledge upon the occurrence and impacts of vegetation fires in Romania and to make a brief report on the sources of data concerning such events, in order to pave the road for further, more detailed studies upon the occurrence of vegetation fires in Romania. Using satellite images-based applications available at EFFIS we could observe that Romania is indeed impacted by many fire events every year. In addition, we worked with a large database provided by the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, that includes over 150,000 entries, regarding interventions of fire brigades on vegetation fires in Romania. Among other aspects, these data showed that the main regions for such interventions were the southern and western parts of the country and that the monthly occurrence of such events corresponds to timeframes typical for clearing agricultural lands.

 

Keywords: vegetation fire, land use, agriculture, impact, Romania.