7th Workshop on Forest Fire Management - EARSeL, European ...

A FOREST FIRE HAZARD BASED ON THE ESTIMATION OF TOURIST HOT
SPOT ACTIVITIES IN AUSTRIA
N. Arndt 1 , A. Arpaci 1 , H. Gossow 1 , P. Ruiz Rodrigo 2 , H. Vacik 1
1 University of Applied Life Sciences Vienna, Austria
2 Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain
1 - Introduction
Austria is a predominantly alpine Central European Country with a size of
83.871 km 2 and a forest cover of 47,2%. The main tree species is Norway
Spruce (Picea abies L. K.) with a total share of 53,7% (ÖWI, 2002). Austrian
forests do not fulfil the characteristics of fire prone ecosystems, nor have
they seriously been fire-impacted so far. Due to the debate on probable climate
change it is hypothesized, that the risk of forest fires will increase in
the coming decades (Flannigan et al., 2005). Forest fires are a result of
complex interactions between ecological factors such as weather, fuel type,
forest structure, topography and socio-economic factors such as population
density, infrastructure and tourism activities (Chuvieco et al., 2009;
Kalabokidis et al., 2002; Marchi et al., 2006). However, in Austria more than
90% of forest fires in the course of the last 50 years are a result of human
interference. Therefore it is necessary to identify forest fire “hot spots” in
Austria in order to develop basic information for an emergency strategy for
Austrian fire brigades. In this context a forest fire hazard model will be
developed combining a socio-economic risk model with drought indices and
a fuel classification approach within the frame of the Austrian Forest Fire
Research Initiative (AFFRI). This contribution describes a part of the fire
hazard approach determining the role of tourist activities for the ignition
risk of forest fires in Austria.
2 - Methodology
The idea is to estimate the effect of tourist activities along touristic infrastructures
on fire ignition by mapping the seasonality, frequency, type and
intensity of tourism activities.
The bases of our research are records of forest fires from Austrian fire
brigades, statistics on tourism, namely overnight stays per district and sea-
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