New ways to fight forest fires

A U V E R G N E I B R A N D E N B U R G I B U L G A R I A I C A T A L O N I A I L A T V I A I S L O V A K I A I W A L E S
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Good Practice Guide
New ways
to fight forest fires
Catalonia, Brandenburg and Bulgaria
Natural Risks

New ways to
fight forest fires
“extinction capacity”- and burn large areas of the
forest.
A balanced combination of both approaches is
therefore needed to increase the chance of reducing
forest fire damage to an acceptable threshold.
Approach 1:
Enhance efficiency in the response to forest fires
Background
Wildfires are one of the main natural hazards affecting
Europe. An average of 500.000 ha of forest is burnt
across the EU annually, with associated emissions of
CO2, other gases and particles.
Use of high efficiency tools
for detection
Case study - Brandenburg
Large fires cause human casualties, damage property,
reduce soil fertility through loss of organic matter, and
hamper biodiversity conservation.
The risk of forest fires is not only an issue of southern
countries but it is becoming increasingly a problem in
higher latitudes as well including Bulgaria and
Germany.
Fire incidence map for
the EU. Source: EU
project Fire-paradox
Climate change is forecast to cause more droughts,
higher temperatures and more windy periods. This will
raise both the likelihood and the severity of fires, hence
an increase of the burned areas in the EU is predicted.
Two different approaches for the same problem
When defining fire fighting policies, there are 2 main
objectives that need to be fulfilled:
1. To provide a quick and efficient response to fire
2. To minimise the number and intensity of large fire
events.
A quicker and more effective response to the majority
of fires is the first step to take in any fire fighting policy.
Fast fire detection and good coordination amongst the
responsible agents for fire suppression are two crucial
issues.
Nonetheless - as already shown in the Mediterranean
regions that have highly improved these response
measures in the last decade - there are always a
number of wildfires (i.e. 4 % in Catalonia) for which
these measures are not fully successful. These become
large forest fires - fires that exceed the so called
A new tool with an automatic, early warning
system for forest fires has been developed in
Brandenburg.
The “FIRE WATCH” (FW) system is a terrestrial,
digital, remote controlled surveillance system,
which is capable of observing larger wooded areas.
The camera delivers pictures of a 360 degree scan
by turning every 6 to 8 minutes. The system
recognises smoke clouds automatically with a
minimal size of 10m x 10m at a distance of 15 to
20 km and produces an acoustic and optic alarm
by automatic recognition. The system identifies the
location of the forest fire and records pictures and
relays fire report information.
Results and experiences with FW:
• 50 % of all forest fires are first detected by FW
• The optical system observes more accurately
than the human eye, especially in larger
distance (15 to 20 km and more)
• Detection - it recognises the fire while it is in its
early stage
• It provides a complete report with map, picture
and facts of date, time and coordinates
• Saves lives? Saves money?
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Improved co-ordination
between organisations
Case study - Bulgaria
During the last 10 years two major steps have been
undertaken in Bulgaria regarding fire fighting:
i) An overall strategy for efficient forest fire
management
ii) An Inter-institutional Council with the main
responsibility to improve the coordination
between the responsible institutions.
These administrative measures combined, as well
as favourable climate conditions have helped to
significantly diminish the number of fires and
damage caused to the forests.
One good practice for prevention and
extinguishing of fires, under national legislation, is
the creation of local groups patrolling, observing
and extinguishing forest fires. They consist of
workers and volunteers and are organised by the
State Forestry and Municipalities. These groups
help in putting out forest fires regardless of the
ownership of the forests, together with the fire
fighters and forestry employees. It is a very good
example of co-operation between institutions at
different levels – state, regional and local.
topographic fire, wind-in-plain-terrains fire, wind
convection fire. This interaction can be devised for a
particular region with the study and reconstruction of
past large wildfires based on spread patterns. A system
has been developed in the framework of the EU project
‘Fireparadox’ to ease this process.
Besides macrotopography, there is another crucial
element that determines fire spread and intensity - the
availability of biomass fuel, which depends on the
species composition, stand structure and age. This is
the only element that we can modify and we can do it
only through specific forestry practices.
Several studies have demonstrated that forest
structures with low fuel accumulation and with no
vertical continuity are more resistant to fire spread and
have reduced fire intensity. The most common forestry
practices to achieve such a forest stand are:
i) Reducing surface-fuel, to limit fire intensity;
ii) Thinning and elimination of fuel, to lower the
probability of vertical fire development;
iii) Combined low and crown thinning, to avoid fire
spreading through tree canopies.
Mapping fire risk types
Case study - Catalonia
The possibility of identifying areas where forest
fires tend to show predictable behaviour, allowed
for the production of the Map of fire-types of
Catalonia. This map helps the forest managers in
identifying the kind of fire that most probably will
affect forests and helping take the right forestry
practice to minimise its effects.
Approach 2:
Integration of fire prevention criteria into forest
management
As opposed to traditional beliefs, a new way of
approaching fire-fighting being used in Catalonia relies
on the prediction of fire behaviour and spread. It is
clear that a correlation exists between active forest
management and the reduction of fire risks but forest
management could play an even greater role, if we
analyse – and appropriately use - the factors affecting
fire behaviour, how they spread, the effect of
topography, weather and fuel.
Although we cannot control them, the existence of fire
spread patterns (based on the macro-topography and
common weather types) allows for the definition of a
set of “Fire types” or fires showing similar behaviour,
linked to a given territory - including standard
Compared to other fire risk maps that usually only
inform on probability of fire ignition, the Map of
fire-type risk also provides information on the
potential extinction difficulties and opportunities,
and on fire spread capacity.
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New tools for fire prevention
at forest stand level
Case study - Catalonia
i) Classification of forest stands according to
their vulnerability to fire
In Catalonia, the existing forest typologies have been
classified according to their vulnerability to canopy
fire into three categories: high vulnerability (A),
moderated (B) or low (C). A classification key
particular forest stand falls into. With such tools,
forest managers can identify the vulnerability degree
of their forest stand and apply the most appropriate
forestry practices to achieve a forest stand structure
with higher resistance to canopy fire (C structures).
ii) Integrated forest management models
In Catalonia, a set of sylvicultural models that
integrate the reduction of fire vulnerability as a
management objective have been defined.
The models proposed for even age stands in areas
with high fire risk, look for a stand structure with big
trees, preferably including broadleaf species, and no,
or little, presence of suppressed trees.
The key management criteria are:
i) To increase the rotation age,
ii) To shorten the regeneration period (no longer
than 15 years).
The aim is to maintain low vulnerability structures
for the longest period possible and reduce high
vulnerability forest structures.
BEFORE – B structure
AFTER – C structure
diagram has also been developed based on easy-tomeasure
variables such as canopy cover and
vegetation height - to identify which category each
The models proposed for uneven age stands, in
areas with high fire risk, advocate forestry practices
based on selective clear-cut in “medium sized
groups” (from 0.5ha up to 1.0ha) to obtain mosaictype
kind of forests which break up the forest mass.
Discussion
Although the tools described here can be used in forest
stands of any size, their efficiency is highly enhanced
when applied into forestry planning at landscape (or
massif) level -between 1,000 and 50,000 ha. This results
in better control of fire behaviour, fire effects, and
extinction costs.
Landscape/massif is a good working scale to:
1. Analyse potential large fire behaviour, which allows for
the identification of strategic points, - those where
fuel treatments are expected to be more effective in
reducing wildfire spread rate and fire intensity -.
2. Integrate fire prevention measures in Forest
Management Plans at forest holding level.
3. Develop specific Fire Prevention Plans.
4. Promote collaboration between different stakeholders
(e.g. forest owners associations, forest and fire
governmental agencies, local bodies, protected areas,
etc.).
Further reading:
The information regarding fire integration into forestry has been
developed by the Fire Prevention administration of Catalonia in the
framework of the EU project Fire-Paradox originated in the 6th
Development Research European Programme and available at
http://fireparadox.org/, and in the ORGEST project by the forestry
administration of Catalonia (CPF and DMAH), available, in Spanish,
at Piqué & Vericat (2009) and Castellnou et al. (2009).
www.gencat.cat/dmah/cpf
Y. Birot (Ed.), 2009. Living with wildfires: What science can tell us.
EFI Discussion Paper, 15. 82 pp.
www.iqwireless.com/images/stories/pdf/Firewatch_brochure.pdf
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