Analysis of forest fires in arid landscapes of the Orenburg region

Abstract

At the present stage of economic development of the forestry complex of the Russian Federation, solving problems with forest fires is key and fundamental. The inevitability of forest fires and the impossibility of preventing the loss of forest resources have led to the need to conduct analytical work to assess the fire rate of forests, which is an indicator of the conditionally permissible area of forest fires for a certain area or forestry for a certain period. The article presents the results of a review of forest fires in the Orenburg region in the context of 27 forest districts for the analyzed period from 2010-2020. Assessing the results of forest fires is necessary to solve current applied problems when planning work in subsequent fire seasons. The study found that for the period (2005-2023), the most fire-dangerous years in terms of the number of fires were 2010 and 2021. An assessment of the relative fire rate in forest districts of the region made it possible to establish that low fire rate is typical for 6 forest districts (22%), moderate and medium fire rate is established in 8 forest districts (30%), and strong (high) fire rate is found in 13 forest districts - 48%. High values of relative fire intensity with values of 0.9, 0.5 and 0.6 were established, respectively, in the Dombarovsky, Orenburgsky and Kvarkensky forest districts, the main reason for their occurrence is the anthropogenic factor. Depending on the geographical location of forestry areas, the number of fires increases; the reliability of the approximation was R2=0.83.