Vegetation fires generate several economical, landscaping and ecological damages. However, it is necessary to know the fires occurrence statistics in order to establish an appropriate politics of fire prevention and control. The objective of this paper is to analyze the influence of climatic elements on the occurrences of fires in Juiz de Fora (MG), in the period between 1995 and 2004. For that purpose, the correlation between some isolated meteorological elements and the occurrences of fires were analyzed, as well as the efficiency of some predicting indexes found in the literature. According to the results, the relative air humidity measured at 3:00 p.m. presented the greatest correlation value; however it was verified that the use of a single variable presented a low correlation index with the fire occurrences, emphasizing the importance of using models containing two or more variables. The use of such models showed that the rate of the variables, evaporation and accumulated precipitation, was the most efficient index for the study area.
Fire; weather; risk
