摘要：Portugal is recurrently affected by large wildfire events that have seriousimpacts at the socio-economic and environmental levels and dramaticconsequences associated with the loss of lives and the destruction of thelandscape. Accordingly, seasonal forecasts are required to assist firemanagers, thus contributing to alter the historically based purely reactiveresponse. In this context, we present and discuss a statistical model toestimate the probability that the total burned area during summer willexceed a given threshold. The statistical model uses meteorologicalinformation that rates the accumulation of thermal and vegetation stress.Outlooks for the 39-year study period (1980–2018) show that, when thestatistical model is applied from 26 May to 30 June, out ofthe six severe years, only one year is not anticipated as potentially severeand, out of the six weak years, only one is not anticipated as potentiallyweak. The availability of outlooks of wildfire potential with ananticipation of up to 1 month before the starting of the fire season, suchas the one proposed here, may serve to provide clear directions for the firecommunity when planning prevention and combating fire events.
