Bioclimatic, anthropogenic and topographical drivers of forest fire dynamics in the Western Himalaya

• Forest fire dynamics in the Western Himalaya are driven by climatic, topographic, and anthropogenic factors. • Thirteen bioclimatic and nine climatic, topographic and anthropogenic variables significantly influenced fire occurrence. • Fire frequency decreased with increasing distance from roads and human settlements. • Integrating climate, terrain, and human activity is crucial for effective fire management. Forest fires are a major ecological problem in the Western Himalayas, where steep topography and changing climate interact with dry vegetation biomass to influence fire regimes. This study investigates the role of climatic, topographic and anthropogenic variables in determining the occurrence of forest fires in the Western Himalayan region. In this study, 39 variables were analyzed, of which 13 bioclimatic variables were found to significantly influence the occurrence of forest fires in the region. All three anthropogenic variables, viz. distance to roads, railway lines and human settlements, showed a significant impact on the occurrence of forest fire. The frequency of fires decreased with increasing distance, with each meter increase in distance reducing the occurrence of fires by 0.127 from roads and 0.032 from settlements. Other influential variables were actual evapotranspiration, heat load index, wind power density, elevation, soil organic carbon and soil nitrogen. Among these, actual evapotranspiration and the heat load index were positively correlated with fire occurrence, while the others showed a negative correlation. Overall, these results highlight the importance of integrating multiple climatic indices, topographic features and anthropogenic factors in predicting fire regimes. They also emphasize the need to account for warming trends, human activities and topography in developing effective forest fire management strategies.