Abstract

(Introduction):  The high levels of environmental degradation caused by forest fires and their relationship with climate change generate great concern worldwide. In Costa Rica, hydrometeorological events classified as extreme due to their level of impact, such as Hurricane Otto in 2016 and Tropical Storm Nate in 2017, seem to have caused a change in the vegetation and consequently with forest fuel.

(Objective):  For this reason, the impact on the supply of vegetable fuel caused by extreme hydrometeorological events was analyzed, during the period 1997 to 2020, in the Platanares, El Avión and Junquillal sites, of the Guanacaste Conservation Area (ACG) in the northwest of the country.

(Methodology):  In the study, data from eight vegetation indices were used, selected for their representativeness of forest growth, as well as field verifications and collection of information to official personnel and ACG volunteers, to determine the effect of extreme events in the characteristics of vegetable fuel and its relationship with fire management and adaptation to climate change.

(Results):  The results obtained indicate that the vegetation of the investigated sites is in a state of natural regeneration but is exposed to the increasingly recurrent influence of the ENSO phenomenon in its different phases (Neutral, La Niña, El Niño), as well as to Extreme hydrometeorological events (such as Hurricane Otto, or Tropical Storm Nate)

(Conclusions):  that could be favoring not the quantity, but the intensity of forest fires.

Keywords: Forest fires; vegetation indices; vegetable fuel