Examining socioeconomic factors associated with wildfire occurrence and burned area in Galicia (Spain) using spatial and temporal data

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Abstract Background The Spanish region of Galicia is one of the most fre-prone areas in Europe. Most wildfres are directly or indirectly related to human activities, suggesting that socioeconomic factors likely can inform wildfre management. Socioeconomic factors, for example, could help explain the causes and distribution of wildfres spatially and temporally within the region. We sought to examine how socioeconomic and biophysical variables and their fuctuations over time (2000–2015) might infuence wildfre ignitions and hectares burned in Galicia using municipality-level data describing socioeconomic factors and forest land wildfres. Results We used cluster analysis to characterize socioeconomic variation in our data set and regression analysis of panel data to investigate jointly the temporal and spatial dimensions of correlation between socioeconomic factors and wildfres. Using cluster analysis, we divided the region inter-territorially according to socioeconomic characteristics. Clustering divisions were found to have a similar pattern to that of Galician provinces. Our regression models for each cluster indicate that several socioeconomic factors are at least correlated with and may tend to infuence wildfre occurrence and burned area in Galicia. We also found discernible patterns related to our identifed clusters, confrming that diferences between territories exist regarding the likely infuence of socioeconomic factors on the number of wildfre ignitions and hectares burned. Conclusions Results suggest that socioeconomic factors are as crucial as meteorological variables for understanding wildfre ignitions and burned area in Galicia (Spain). Accurate knowledge of inter-territorial socioeconomic diferences could help public ofcials and forest managers to design wildfre prevention policies best suited to the socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental circumstances of each territory.