Visió històrica dels incendis forestals al Port de Tortosa els segles XIV i XV

Abstract

We show the fire history in the Tortosa Mountains (NE Spain) from the years 1370 A.D. to 1466 A.D. obtained from the «claveria» books of the Tortosa city. These books record the city expenditures, including those for fighting against fires burning in the city forests. We used the amount paid as an estimation of fire magnitude. We found 51 records of fires, 67 % of which occurred in summer. The causes of fires were reported in 19.6 % of records and they were related to human activity. Burning was explicitly forbidden and violators were prosecuted. Both fire duration and magnitude showed a left skewed distribution. A maximum peak of fire occurrence and magnitude was found in the 1401-1410 decade. We calculated the fire interval distribution function of the 14th-15th centuries fires considering the Tortosa Mountains as a single location and we compared the result with the same function obtained from the fires recorded in the 1966-1996 period by the local environment agency. We obtained a similar negative exponential function for both periodes. The result suggests that the current fire regime is not very different from that existing in the 14-15th centuries.