The relationship between fire number and burned area in Antalya, Izmir and Mugla regions in Turkey

Abstract

This study focuses on Antalya, Izmir and Mugla regions, where the highest number of fires were experienced within Turkey. The number and area relationship between the fires were examined together with large fires. Within whole Turkey, these three regions incorporated 55.24% of the area burned in large fires, in which over 300 ha of land was burned. In terms of the number of fires, Mugla ranked first among these regions and was followed by Izmir. Apart from the number of fires, Antalya, however, had the highest burned area, both in all fires and in large fires. No significant relationship was found between the number and area of fires in all working areas. The fact that most fires were small and that the large fires burnt extremely big areas compared the area per fire, relationship between the number of fires and the area burned. However, when the fires burning an area of over 300 ha in Turkey were considered, there was a strong relationship between the number of fires and the area burned.