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Fire occurrence, which results from the presence of an ignition source and the conditions for a fire to spread, is an essential component of fire risk assessment. In this paper, we present and compare the results of the application of two different methods to identify the main structural factors that explain the likelihood of fire occurrence at European scale. Data on the number of fires for the countries of the European Mediterranean region during the main fire season (June–September) were obtained from the European Fire Database of the European Forest Fire Information System. Fire density (number of fires/km²) was estimated based on interpolation techniques and was used as the dependent variable in the model. As predictors, different physical, socio-economic and demographic variables were selected based on their potential influence in fire occurrence and on their availability at the European level. Two different …