Civantos-Prieto et al. (2026) Historical Wildfire Catalog of Catalonia (1986–2023) Enriched with Meteorological and Drought Indices

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Identification

• Journal: Open MIND
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-02-25
• Authors: David Civantos-Prieto, Jesus Peña-Izquierdo, David Teruel Cano, Daniel Cendagorta-Galarza Friend, Martí Perpinyà-Vallès, Claudia Huertas, Claudia Urricelqui
• DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18770754

Research Groups

• Lobelia Earth

Short Summary

This work provides a comprehensive spatial dataset of wildfires in Catalonia, Spain (1986–2023), integrating official fire perimeters with meteorological data and drought indices.

Objective

• To create a highly enriched spatial catalog to facilitate research on fire-weather relationships, the impacts of climate change on fire regimes, and the pre-conditioning of landscapes for large-scale wildfires.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Catalonia, Spain.
• Temporal Scale: 1986–2023 (with a climatological reference baseline from 1981–2000).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: ERA5 reanalysis (for meteorological and drought variable extraction).
• Data sources:
  • Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya (ICGC) for spatial fire perimeters.
  • ERA5 reanalysis for meteorological data.

Main Results

• Generation of a GeoJSON dataset containing MultiPolygon geometries of fire events.
• Integration of key variables per fire event:
  • Spatial/Temporal: Fire ID, date, coordinates, and burned area (ha).
  • Meteorology: Precipitation, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, maximum wind gusts, and vapor pressure deficit (VPD).
  • Indices: Fire Weather Index (FWI) and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI3, SPEI12, and lagged SPEI12).
  • Climatology: Calculation of historical baselines (1981–2000) and corresponding weather anomalies at the time of ignition.

Contributions

• Provides a ready-to-use, spatially enriched dataset that combines official fire perimeters with high-resolution climate data, reducing the preprocessing effort required for researchers studying fire-climate interactions in the Mediterranean region.

Funding

• Not specified.

Citation

@article{CivantosPrieto2026Historical,
  author = {Civantos-Prieto, David and Peña-Izquierdo, Jesus and Cano, David Teruel and Friend, Daniel Cendagorta-Galarza and Perpinyà-Vallès, Martí and Huertas, Claudia and Urricelqui, Claudia},
  title = {Historical Wildfire Catalog of Catalonia (1986–2023) Enriched with Meteorological and Drought Indices},
  journal = {Open MIND},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.5281/zenodo.18770754},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18770754}
}