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Type: Journal Article
Author(s): Stijn Hantson; Salvador Pueyo; Emilio Chuvieco
Publication Date: 2016

Wildland fires are one of the main alleged examples of Self-Organised Criticality (SOC), with simple SOC models resulting in the expectation of a power-law fire size frequency distribution. Here, we test whether fire size distributions systematically follow a power law and analyse their spatial variation for eight distinct areas over the globe. For each of the areas, we examine the fire size frequency distribution using two types of plots, maximum likelihood estimation and chi-square tests. Log-normal emerges as a suitable option to fit the fire size distribution in this variety of environments. In only two of eight areas was the power law (which is a particular case of the log-normal) not rejected. Notably, the two parameters of log-normal are related to each other, displaying a general linear relation, which extends to the sites that can be described with a power law. These results do not necessarily refute the SOC hypothesis, but reveal the presence of other processes that are, at least, modulating the outcome of SOC in some areas.

Online Links
Citation: Hantson, Stijn; Pueyo, Salvador; Chuvieco, Emilio. 2016. Global fire size distribution: from power law to log-normal. International Journal of Wildland Fire 25(4):403-412.

Cataloging Information

Topics:
Regions:
Alaska    California    Eastern    Great Basin    Hawaii    Northern Rockies    Northwest    Rocky Mountain    Southern    Southwest    International    National
Keywords:
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • distribution
  • Europe
  • fire frequency
  • fire management
  • fire size
  • Kazakhstan
  • log normal model
  • North America
  • Portugal
  • power law
  • self-organized criticality
  • South Africa
  • South America
  • statistical analysis
  • wildfires
Tall Timbers Record Number: 32518Location Status: In-fileCall Number: Journals - IAbstract Status: Okay, Fair use, Reproduced by permission
Record Last Modified:
Record Maintained By: FRAMES Staff (https://www.frames.gov/contact)
FRAMES Record Number: 22037

This bibliographic record was either created or modified by Tall Timbers and is provided without charge to promote research and education in Fire Ecology. The E.V. Komarek Fire Ecology Database is the intellectual property of Tall Timbers.