Climatic and Forest Drivers of Wildfires in South Korea (1980-2024): Trends, Predictions, and the Role of the Wildland-Urban Interface

초록

Wildfire activity is intensifying globally as climate change amplifies heat waves, droughts and wind extremes, threatening biodiversity. South Korea (63% forested) has experienced a sharp rise in large fires. We analysed 905 wildfires >= 5 ha from 1980-2024, linking burned area to maximum wind speed, relative humidity, temperature and forest structure (conifer, broadleaf and mature-stand ratios, forest cover). Pearson correlations, HC3-corrected regression, a 1000-tree Random Forest and five-fold validated XGBoost interpreted with SHAP captured linear and nonlinear effects; WUI influences were examined qualitatively. Each 1 m s(-1) increase in peak wind expanded burned area by similar to 8.5 ha, whereas a 1% rise in humidity reduced area by similar to 3 ha (p < 0.01). Broadleaf prevalence restrained spread, while high conifer and mature-stand proportions enlarged it. Machine learning raised explanatory power from R-2 = 0.62 to 0.66 and showed that very dry air, strong winds and conifer cover above half the landscape coincided with the largest events. Burned area during 2020-2024 reached 29,905 ha-sevenfold that of 2015-2019. These results imply that extreme fire weather, flammable pine fuels and expanding WUI settlements jointly elevate risk; implementing real-time meteorological thresholds, targeted fuel treatments and stricter WUI zoning can help mitigate this risk.

키워드