Mongolian Wildland Fires

Mongolian wildland fires are a human-made disaster as these fire disasters became prominent since 1990s. The worst fire losses were in 1996, 192% of the GDP. This study reports recent wildland fire incidence and climate relationships analyzed with NASA-MODIS hotspots (fires) and NOAA weather data. Fires are categorized into spring fires from April to June in pasture areas; summer fires in July and August in forested areas, and autumn fires in September and October in forested areas. Fires frequently occur after 10 rainless days while 10 mm of daily precipitation reduces fire extent. A weeklong effective humidity below 35% coincided with large fires. From 2001 to 2007, mean temperatures increased 3.4şC in July and summer precipitation decreased by about 50% while the fire disaster intensity increased. Fires were mainly human caused, begin at relatively low altitudes after the snow melts in April and move to higher altitude areas in May. From 2001 to 2007, around 30% of forest areas were affected, the Selenge, Khentii and Dornod provinces were the most fire prone. The severest spring and autumn fires occurred on 5 May 2007 and 22 September 2002.