Climate change will reshape future wildfire danger and hazard in Sardinia, Italy

Abstract

Recent years have highlighted an increasing vulnerability to wildfires in Europe driven by climate, land use change, and socio-economic factors. Under future projected warming and drying patterns, Mediterranean areas emerge as one of the most wildfire-sensitive regions. This study combines high-resolution climate projections from three CMIP6 models (ACC, ECE, MPI) under three SSP scenarios with a wildfire modeling framework to assess wildfire danger and hazard for historical baseline (1985–2014) and a near-future period (2035–2064) in Sardinia, Italy. Climate variables were statistically downscaled to 1 km2 resolution and used to calculate Fire Weather Index (FWI) and Daily Severity Rating (DSR). Then, using the Minimum Travel Time algorithm and probabilistic fire simulations, we generated spatially explicit estimates of burn probability, fire intensity and crown fire probability at 150 m resolution. Despite model-dependent differences in magnitude, all scenarios consistently point to warmer, drier, and more fire-prone conditions. Results indicate a systematic shift toward more severe fire danger under future scenarios, with a marked increase in the days reaching very high FWI and DSR values, particularly from May to October, which evidences nearly doubled frequencies under SSP5-8.5 scenarios. Similarly, simulated wildfire hazard outputs show significant increases, with hotspots expanding towards western and inland Sardinia, particularly with ECE (+ 250% of annual area burned moving from baseline to 2035–2064, under SSP5-8.5). These results provide detailed spatial assessments of future potential wildfire impacts in a fire-prone Mediterranean region and offer insights to support fire and land management in landscapes highly susceptible to wildfire occurrence.