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Track: Forestry
Jacqueline Klaver
U.S. Geological Survey
47914 252nd Street
Science and Applications Branch
Sioux Falls, SD 57918
Telephone: 605-594-6067
Fax: 605-594-6568
E-mail: jklaver@edcserver1.cr.usgs.gov
Robert Klaver, Robert Bergan
Using GIS To Assess Forest Fire Hazard in the Mediterranean Regions of the U.S.
Defining Issue: Forest fires are a major concern in the Mediterranean ecosystem because of the environmental and human losses they cause. A total of 2,410,916 ha were affected by fires in Spain between 1980 and 1989, with losses totaling 443,450 million pesetas (more than 3,000 million ECU). Spain has the largest area of burned land within Europe, both because it is the most forested country within the European Mediterranean basin and because it has the largest average burned area per fire. On the average some 250,000 wildland fires occur in the United States each year on federal, state, and private lands. Most of these fires are quickly controlled by the planned local protection forces at relatively small size. However, a significant number exceed the ability of the initial attack forces to contain them and escape to cause substantial damage to natural resources and property and loss of life. GIS Solution: In order to minimize this threat of loss from wildfires, fire managers must be able to plan
protection strategies that are appropriate for individual local areas. A prerequisite for this planning is the ability to assess and map for broad areas the local potential for a major fire to occur. Based on such geographic information, managers can establish priorities over the area for prevention activities to reduce the risk of wildfire ignition and spread, as well as for the allocation of suppression forces to improve the probability for initial attack to control fires that do occur in areas of high concern. Methodology: A geographical information system (GIS) is proposed as a suitable tool for mapping the spatial distribution of fire hazard danger. Using regions severely affected by forest fires within the Mediterranean ecosystems of Chile, Mexico, Spain, and the United States as the study areas, vegetation greenness, ten-hour fuel moisture, meteorological data, fire history data, and fuel models would be mapped and incorporated within a GIS to assess fire hazard. The conceptual model is
assessing - the daily live and dead fuel moisture present within each vegetation stand - the amount of tons/acre of live and dead fuels for each vegetation type These factors indicate the potential fire index for each vegetation stand. Software: ArcInfo GRID Version 7.1.1 and S-plus. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the techniques and to present the results of our analysis of the fire hazard potential in the Mediterranean ecosystem of California.
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