Social-Media Analysis for Disaster Prevention: Forest Fire in Artenara and Valleseco, Canary Islands

Abstract

This manuscript investigates the use of social media, specifically Twitter, during the forest fires in Artenara and Valleseco, Canary Islands, Spain, during summer 2019. The used methodology was big-data analysis through the Union Metrics and Twlets tools, as well as content analysis of posts related to the fires written by seven relevant accounts on the days when the fires were active, which was between 17 August and 26 September, when 9636.40 hectares were burned. The accounts selected for analysis were the following: Ángel Víctor Torres, autonomous president; Canary Islands Government; Civil Protection of Las Palmas; Military Emergency Unit of the Spanish Army; Delegation of the Spanish Government in the Canary Islands; Citizen’s Service of the Canary Islands Government; and the information account of the Security and Emergency area of the Canary Islands Government. The study concludes that the Canary Islands authorities did not use social media as a preventive element, but almost exclusively as a live-information channel. Future recommendations are presented for the management of social media during natural disasters.

Comparing Methods to Collect and Geolocate Tweets in Great Britain

“…In this regard, Zamarreño-Aramendia et al [10] believe that the context in which social media can be used for open innovation still needs to be further studied.…”

“…From a more practical perspective, Howe [61] suggests to public administrations to use open innovation and corporate R&D to fix issues in the communication and prevention of natural disasters. In such a framework, the use of social networks (and of Twitter, especially) should enable public officials to collect "knowledge produced by different involved stakeholders, as well as to use all these knowledge synergies in order to establish mid-and long-term prevention public policies" [10] p. 13. Against the background of a natural disaster, the data collection and processing described in this paper could be reduced from a daily to few hourly intervals in order to be able to obtain timely information.…”

“…Consequently, such a type of real-time data source has become one prominent tool in order to support the development of a very wide range of studies and data-driven decisions in different contexts. Just to cite a few examples, social media data are currently used in several different domains, such as: Public health [15,16]; disaster management (for creating crisis maps, assessing damages and detecting help requests, for driving ongoing relief activities or providing necessary information to relatives of those involved, or simply and exclusively as a live-information channel) [10,[17][18][19][20][21][22]; politics (for evaluating the implementation of new policies, laws, or interventions, or studying the public opinion; for forecasting election results or monitoring election periods) [11,[23][24][25]; language studies [26][27][28]; monitoring of socio-demographic phenomena [29], transportation [30], or real time events [31]; journalism (with an increasing usage of contents-video, images, sounds-that eyewitness events or news) [32]; marketing research [33]; sentiment analysis [27]. Social media analytics can also be used with a more commercial perspective, for example by business managers, in order to evaluate or to forecast the performance of specific products or services, or to obtain feedbacks from customers, to drive targeted marketing and advertising strategies, or to orientate production plans [34][35][36].…”

“…The data can be made available immediately, producing very large sized datasets that can be used for a wide range of purposes. For example, they can be employed for supporting theoretical and applied research projects and/or as evidence for making timely decisions [10]. They also allow scientists to have constant and quick updates, with information available almost in real time.…”

Private security preparedness for disasters caused by fire

“…Also, the results showed that slightly more than a half of the respondents had experience with the hydrant network, but it was not determined how they used it and whether it was done in a proper and safe way (Coar et al, 2020). The fact is that the fire cannot be absolutely prevented, but by taking various preventive measures, establishing regular inspection processes, regular servicing and maintenance of fire protection systems, correct and regular updating of procedures, instructions and other internal acts, which provide fire protection, it is possible to reduce consequences in case of fire (Crosby, 1905;Daane & Toth, 2005;Diamantes & Jones, 2020;Fan et al, 2020;Fuller, 1991;Mallonee et al, 1996;Zamarreño-Aramendia et al, 2020). Therefore, it is extremely important that the person entrusted with fire protection is informed about the measures and steps taken in case of fire protection.…”