Atmospheric Conditions Conducive to Forest Fire Events in the Greater Himalayan Region

​​During the last decade, there has been a dramatic rise in Forest Fire incidents over the Indian Himalayan region, leading to a considerable loss of life and property. To mitigate and manage the impact of forest fires through a Forest Fire Early Warning System, a better understanding of both small and large-scale atmospheric processes conducive to the spread of forest fires is required. Although significant progress has been made in disseminating forest fire danger information, most of the operational methodologies in the Indian sub-continent still do not consider real-time weather forecasts from atmospheric numerical models as input to the fire module. The objective of this work is to systematically analyze the meteorological conditions during two major forest fire events that occurred over the Uttarakhand region in 2016 and 2020. Forest fire events in 2016 and 2020 coincide with El Nino, La-Nina and cycles of Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). A detailed analysis of the 2016 and 2020 fire events shows an increased frequency of fire events and burnt areas in 2016, whereas the area burnt was considerably low in the 2020 event. A typical year without significant influences from ENSO and IOD shows relatively low spread of fires and burnt areas. Such an impenetrable correlation between atmospheric oscillations and fire events results in vast damage over the Indian Himalayan region. The inculcation of real-time weather forecasts with numerical weather prediction models could tackle this existing gap in the Forest Fire Early Warning System and possibly mitigate the further casualties caused by the increased acceleration of fire spread induced by atmospheric oscillation over the Indian Himalayan region.