Riscul la incendii în pădurile din România: cartare și metode de evaluare [ The wildfire risk in Romanian forests: mapping and assements of methods]

Abstract

The paper presents results of a risk analysis of forest fires at county level, based on published statistical data of period 1976-2000 (”Health condition of the forests în Romania”) and different methodologies to assess the fire risk of forest stands using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and a methodology integrating GIS techniques. The global fire risk model, based on the cumulated ranks on the analyzed period, indicated a very higher risk for forests in the south-west and south-east of Romania (the counties Caraș Severin, Gorj, and Tulcea, Constanța respectively), while other eight counties were included in the higher fire risk category. Among the models of fire occurrence based on SPI, the higher variance was explained by the cumulated value of SPI in winter, spring and summer (44%). The method based on ranking scores considered six main factors contributing to the occurrence of forest fires - vegetation type, distance to forest edge/roads, maximum temperature, maximum moisture, historical occurrence of forest fire, based on which is provided a 5 - class risk system. This method is extended further by using GIS tools, which could provide mapped information on the forest fire risk.

Keywords

• wildfire risk
• spi
• mapping
• romania