Fire Weather Risk 2050 (France, DRIAS)

Source: DRIAS (Météo-France) TRACC2023 Year: 2050 Category: Physical risks · Mitigating services · Climate Acute Risks Coverage: Country (France) Format: Raster grid Used in risk analysis: No (contextual layer; not used in materiality scoring)

What it shows

This is a forward-looking scenario layer for France. It measures how often weather conditions favourable to wildfire are projected to occur around the 2050 horizon, helping anticipate where the risk of fire ignition and spread will be greatest — with implications for forests and ecosystems, air quality and human settlements.

How it is built

The layer reports the projected number of days per year on which the Fire Weather Index (a standard meteorological measure of fire danger) exceeds 40, the threshold for high fire-weather conditions. It is based on the French DRIAS TRACC2023 climate projection for the ~2050 horizon, at a +2°C global warming level (roughly +2.7°C over France). As a single-model scenario projection, it should be read as a plausible future trajectory rather than an observation. Risk is concentrated on the Mediterranean coast and Corsica.

How to read it

Higher values mean more days per year with fire-favourable weather, indicating greater exposure to wildfire ignition and spread, forest and ecosystem damage, smoke-related air-quality loss and threats to settlements at the edge of wildland. Lower values indicate fewer such days.

Class thresholds

The underlying layer models a physical flux: the projected number of days per year on which the Fire Weather Index (IFM) exceeds 40 (days/year), from the DRIAS TRACC2023 projection for the ~2050 horizon at a +2 °C global warming level. It is a continuous raster, not a five-class product: the colour ramp runs over the range 0 to 60 days/year rather than along fixed risk bins, so there are no class breakpoints — higher values simply mean more fire-weather days.

This layer is contextual and is not used in materiality scoring. The configuration does define a single screening cut-off of ≥ 20 days/year with IFM > 40 to mark a high-fire-weather-risk zone.

How these thresholds were set. Two thresholds apply, both external in part. The IFM > 40 cut-off that defines a fire-favourable day is the standard meteorological threshold for high fire-weather conditions (Fire Weather Index methodology); the day-count quantity itself comes from the DRIAS TRACC2023 projection. The further 20 days/year cut-off used to mark a high-risk zone is a Darwin in-house round-number screening threshold, not a DRIAS or WWF standard.

Reference: DRIAS – Les futurs du climat — drias-climat.fr.

Source

DRIAS – Les futurs du climat (TRACC2023 experiment) — https://www.drias-climat.fr.

Comparison with the WWF Risk Filter Suite

WWF's wildfire indicator (S3_2) is a present-day, global measure based on satellite active-fire observations. This layer is instead a France-specific, forward-looking 2050 fire-weather projection, so it has no distinct WWF equivalent and acts as a national scenario complement.

Legend

Symbolised field: Days with IFM > 40 (days/year)

Generated from darwin/layers/layer-fire-weather-risk-2050-france-drias.toml and risk_indicator_pairs.toml (develop).