Abstract: Wildfire is an important disturbance factor in natural ecosystems, posing great threats to people’s lives and properties while maintaining natural ecosystem diversity. Studying the spatial and temporal patterns of wildfires will help to understand the patterns of wildfire occurrence and thus provide the scientific basis for wildfire management. In this study, the spatial and temporal patterns of wildfires in China were analyzed using statistical software, SPSS, and GIS and remote sensing technology based on Terra/MOD14A2 data from 2006 to 2012. The results showed that the annual burned area tended to decrease generally although varied significantly among different years. The provinces greatly contributing to the change of the annual burned area were mainly from southern China, southwest and northwest regions. The monthly burned area had significant differences among various months and the most burned area occurred in March. The provinces greatly contributing to the change of the monthly burned area were from southern, southwest, northeast and northwest regions. Wildfires and environmental factors were closely related; wildfires easily occurred in hilly areas, in areas with average rainfall between 400 mm and 800 mm and average temperature between 0 ℃ and 10 ℃, and in coniferous forests. This study could provide a scientific basis for zoning wildfire risks and wildfire management in China.

Key words: exotic species., population structure, species composition