Determination of Natural and Anthropogenic Caused Forest Fire Susceptibilities Threatening the Pine Honey Production and Marchalina Hellenica Population

Abstract

Every year, an average of 250 forest fires occur in Turkey and 10,000 hectares of forest area are destroyed by natural and human-caused forest fires. Moreover, 90% of the world's pine honey production is produced in red pine (Pinus brutia) forests infested with Marchalina Hellenica. However, the limited production sites for pine honey are destroyed by forest fires and most of the sites overlap with the regions where susceptibility to forest fires is highest. In particular, in 2021 and 2022, pine honey production in Muğla province decreased by half due to the large forest fires. In this study, susceptibility to forest fires caused by lightning, cigarette butts, stubble burning and power lines was modeled separately for all pine honey production sites via MaxEnt. Each risk map overlapped with the Marchalina Hellenica distribution map to determine which fire causes put each region at risk. When the results were examined, 1357.6 km2 (56.6%) of the 2396 km2 pine honey production site was found to be at risk from lightning-caused forest fires. For human-caused forest fires, 184.7 km2 (7.7%) were at risk from power lines and 136 km2 (5.7%) from stubble fires. 116.8 km2 of pine honey production areas are threatened by forest fires caused by cigarette butts, which is the least threatening cause in the study area. The findings obtained in this study provide important information on the measures that can be taken against forest fires and on the planning of early intervention procedures to protect pine honey production areas.