View article

Fire is an integral Earth system process, playing an important role in the distribution of terrestrial ecosystems and affecting the carbon cycle at the global scale. Fire activity is controlled by a number of biophysical factors, including climate, whose relevance varies across regions and landscapes. In light of the ongoing climate change, understanding the fire–climate relationships is an issue of current interest in order to identify the most vulnerable regions. Building upon recent global observations of burned areas and climate, we investigate the sensitivity of fire activity to fire–weather across the world's major biomes. We identify the biomes susceptible to inter-annual fire–weather fluctuations, unveiling a non-linear relationship with a saturation threshold past which the area burned can be considered insensitive to increasing fire-weather. Our results depict an unambiguous spatial pattern that identifies the world regions …