This constitutes a sectorial analysis of the PESETA II project of the European Commission Joint Research Center in the area of wildfires. Wildfires are a serious threat to European forests, and climate is the most important driving factor affecting wildfire potential over time (Flannigan et al., 2000). Wildfires are an environmental, economic and social problem particularly in the southern European countries, where wildfires regularly burn thousands of hectares of forests and other lands. Changes in wildfire regimes may have strong impacts on natural resources and ecosystems stability, with consequent direct and indirect economic losses. On the other hand, active forest management and wildfire management practices have some potential to counteract the impacts of a changing climate. The FOREST Action hosts the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). EFFIS supports wildfire protection efforts in the EU countries and provides the European Commission services and the European Parliament with information on European forest fires. This project builds off of tools, models and datasets available in EFFIS. Fire danger is "a general term used to express an assessment of both fixed and variable factors of the fire environment that determine the ease of ignition, rate of spread, difficulty of control and fire impact(s)" (Merrill and Alexander, 1987). Fire danger depends on many factors that can change over time (e.g., weather, fuel load, fuel type and condition, forest management practices, socio-economic context...). Today most wildfires in Europe are caused by human activity (i.e., anthropogenic ignition sources). However, it has been shown that the total burned area in Mediterranean Europe, and thus the overall impact of forest fires, changes significantly from year to year largely because of weather conditions (Camia and Amatulli, 2009). Extreme fire danger conditions in South-eastern Europe leading to major wildfire events have, in many cases, been driven by an explosive mix of strong winds and extremely high temperatures, following prolonged drought periods (San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2012). Meteorologically-based fire danger indices evaluate and summarize the fire danger considering current and past weather. These indices, normally applied on a daily basis, can also provide seasonal summaries to compare the overall wildfire potential of a given year due to meteorological conditions. Based on these indices, maps of projected change of fire danger in Europe under climate change are being developed. In addition, statistical models linking meteorological fire danger and area burned are being developed, to support assessments of the expected impact of changed fire danger conditions.
