Forest Fire Protection: Mapping and Risk Analysis
Implementation of Mapping to Identify Areas of Protection Against Forest Fires
This allows evaluating the distribution of problems caused by the occurrence and spread of forest fires and provides the mechanisms necessary to classify the different sectors of the area under protection, according to risk, danger, and potential damage present, and the degree of interest that exists for the implementation of fire management operations.
Overall Objective
To define areas of forest fire protection in a given area and rank them by their priority, in order to guide decision-making for resource allocation for prevention and combat, and identify the variables that influence occurrences in, propagation, and damage caused by forest fires.
To do this, you need to have the necessary information, such as:
General Background of the Area Under Protection
- Geographical Location
- Property Tax Limits
- Areas for Land Use
- Internal and External Road Network
- Local Weather
- Water Sources
- Local Population and its Distribution
- Vegetation
Risk Analysis
This is the study of the factors that determine the probability of a forest fire occurrence. For this, it is necessary to watch:
Historical Occurrence: This corresponds to the fires in past seasons, represented by a trend. The review of cases will reveal the behavior of the population. Background for prevention.
Hazard Analysis
The study of environmental conditions that affect susceptibility to burning vegetation and inflammability, the spread of fire, and provoked resistance to control.
To develop the analysis, it is necessary to know the vegetation types that are classified as fuel models.
Analysis of Potential Damage
An economic study regarding determining the value of the resources under protection and that may be affected by fire.
- Commercial Damage: The economic value of tangible assets or securities that would be lost.
- Social or Ecological Damage: The value of intangible goods or services provided by forest resources and that, upon being destroyed, affect the population.
When Hell Breaks Loose
Forest fire detection is performed using a procedure called “Torreo CONAF”.
The “Torreo” consists of continuous surveillance from a tower that is located in a strategic location within an area of priority protection. In that place, a forest guard from CONAF notes and gives the alarm message when a fire breaks out. A call is made to the central CONAF located in this region, indicating the coordinates based on letters of smoke in the IGM scale 1:50,000.
Then, in the central sector, all letters must be put in order according to a lattice mapping that divides a given region as a matrix.
According to the vegetation of the area, the decision is made on how many volunteer crews will be sent by CONAF to work, which is the ideal team to fight this type of forest fire or another, and so on. In other words, there are many variables that influence decisions to allocate resources, and everyone should be done quickly to prevent the fire from spreading.