Temporal and spatial characteristics of forest fires in South Korea between 1970 and 2003

Abstract

Information on the temporal and spatial patterns of forest fires can contribute to efficient forest fire management. To evaluate the readjustment of forest fire precautionary periods and to provide information for forest fire prevention and suppression strategies, the temporal and spatial characteristics of forest fire occurrences and spread in Korea were analysed using statistics from 1970 to 2003. Monthly forest fire occurrences and burned area were examined using time-series analysis, and F-tests were conducted among forest fire occurrences, burned area, and fire area growth rate to understand monthly forest fire characteristics. To understand the spatial characteristics of forest fires, cities and counties with similar forest fire characteristics were grouped based on cluster analysis of forest fire occurrences and spread characteristics. A seasonal exponential smoothing model was selected for forest fire occurrences and burned area. The number of mean annual forest fire occurrences was 429, and mean annual burned area was 2908 ha year–1 in Korea. The seasonal differences in forest fire characteristics were clearly distinguished, with 61% of total forest fire occurrences and 90% of total burned area being in March and April. Forest fire precautionary periods are suggested based on forest fire occurrence patterns. A total of 226 cities and counties throughout the country were classified into three groups. Group 1, which had frequent forest fire occurrences with smaller burned areas and slower fire growth area rates, was distributed in the western part of Korea and metropolitan regions. Group 3, which had a relatively small number of forest fire occurrences but larger burned areas and fast growth rates, was located in the central inland region and the eastern part of the Taeback Mountain Range. Group 2 had characteristics intermediate between those of group 1 and group 3.

Human-caused wildfire risk rating for prevention planning in Spain

“…A better knowledge on spatial patterns of fire occurrence and their relationships with underlying factors of human risk becomes a necessity to locate and make prevention efforts more efficient. Given the time spans required for prevention planning, databases encompassing several years are usually called for when considering wildfire occurrence trends (the 1983-2001 time period in the study by De la Riva et al, 2004;1981in Genton et al, 20061989-1996in Preisler et al, 20041970 in Lee et al, 2006;-2002 in Maingi and Henry, 2007;1976in Schoenberg et al, 2007in Sturtevand and Cleland, 20071970 time period in the study by Vasilakos et al, 2007).…”

Interannual variation in biomass burning and fire seasonality derived from geostationary satellite data across the contiguous United States from 1995 to 2011

“…Historical fire inventories of burned area and fire frequency are commonly used for monitoring wildfire properties. For example, time series of historical burned area at different time scales [Riaňo et al, 2007;Pereira et al, 2011] have been used to quantify the fire season length and the timing of the start of the fire season [Taylor and Skinner, 2003;Lee et al, 2006;Westerling et al, 2006], and the reported time between the first wildfire discovery date and the last wildfire control date has been applied to derive the long-term variation in the fire season [Westerling et al, 2006].…”

Un ejemplo práctico de aplicación operativa de la teledetección a la gestión de riesgos naturales : cartografía y evaluación urgente de áreas quemadas en Galicia

“…En el ámbito de los incendios forestales, la cartografía del número, localización y área afectada resulta especialmente útil de cara a disponer de información suficiente para realizar un análisis apropiado de la distribución espacial de este fenómeno (Arino et al, 2001). Este tipo de análisis permite extraer conclusiones acerca del grado de actividad de cada una de las variables que en él intervienen, además de mostrar la sensibilidad al fuego que presentan las diferentes regiones (Lee et al, 2006;Verdú, 2007). En este aspecto, la teledetección constituye una inestimable fuente de información de cara a la prevención (localización de medios en áreas de fuerte incidencia histórica, validación de modelos de riesgo, etc.)…”