Fire statistics

Statistiques des feux sur les 4 départements

The Landes de Gascogne forest is subject to extremely high pressure in terms of fire starts. Gironde experiences more fire starts than any other département in France; Les Landes ranked number 4 in France over the 1991-2006 period.
Since 1985, the average size of burned surfaces has decreased.

Statistics concerning fire causes

Répartition des causes des incendies (.pdf, 15.4 Ko) - 16/11/2006

• When a fire takes place whose cause has not been determined, a subsequent investigation is conducted by the gendarmerie. If the said investigation does not reveal the cause of the fire, the latter will be classified as an unknown cause. It is clear, however, that these fires classified in the "unknown cause" category are most often located near urban areas, in summer tourist areas or along major communication routes. This shows that the extension of urban areas in the direction of forests, the increase in leisure activities in forest environments and more generally the increase in tourist activity in the Landes de Gascogne forest are factors that heighten the risk of forest fires.
  It is now known that the majority of forest fires are due to human activity.
• Concerning carelessness and accidental causes (infrastructures as well as railways).
• Lightning is a key factor, due to the large number of fires started at the same time: on 12 August 1990, 183 fires broke out simultaneously!

As the "Lightning" cause may be considered as constant, the increased number of fires may be explained solely by human factors.