A 500 hPa synoptic wildland fire climatology for large Canadian forest fires, 1959–1996

Summary In Canada, the average annual area of burned forest has increased from around 1 million ha in the 1970’s to over 2.5 million ha in the 1990’s. A previous study has identified the link between anomalous mid-tropospheric circulation at 500 hPa over northern North America and wildland fire severity activity in various large regions of Canada over the entire May to August fire season. In this study, a northern North American study region of the hemispheric gridded 5° latitude by 10° longitude 500 hPa dataset is identified and analysed from 1959 to 1996 for a sequence of six monthly periods through the fire season, beginning in April and ending in September. Synoptic types, or modes of upper air behavior, are determined objectively by the eigenvector method employing K-means cluster analysis. Monthly burned areas from the Canadian Large Fire Database (LFDB) for the same period, 1959 to 1996, are analysed in conjunction with the classified monthly 500 hPa synoptic types. Relationships between common monthly patterns of anomalous upper flow and spatial patterns of large fire occurrence are examined at the ecozone level. Average occurrence of a monthly synoptic type associated with very large area burned is approximately 18% of the years from 1959 to 1996. The largest areas burned during the main fire (May to August) season occur in the western Boreal and Taiga ecozones – the Taiga Plains, Taiga Shield, Boreal West Shield and Boreal Plains. Monthly burned areas are also analysed temporally in conjunction with a calculated monthly zonal index (Zi_m) for two separate areas defined to cover western and eastern Canada. In both western and eastern Canada, high area burned is associated with synoptic types with mid-tropospheric ridging in the proximity of the affected region and low Zi_m with weak westerlies and strong meridional flow over western Canada. Received April 3, 2001 Revised July 13, 2001