Assessment of two methods on zoning wildfire propagation in Itacolomi State Park, Minas Gerais State, Brazil

Abstract

This study aimed to assess the wild fire propagation risk to wildfires in the Itacolomi State Park, in Minas Gerais State, Brazil, using GIS and to compare the efficiency of the incident solar radiation over the aspect variable. The following variables were used: land cover/use (LCU), slope (SLP), slope curvature (CUR), aspect (ASP) and incident solar radiation (SOL). The weights of each variable were calculated from the ratio between the total area and the burned area of each class in order to generate the fire propagation risk maps. Fire data from 2016 to 2019 were used for validation. When the moderate risk class was considered susceptible, inadequate precision was observed for both methods (ASP and SOL). On the other hand, when the moderate class was considered non-susceptible to fire, the results presented moderate accuracy. Furthermore, the methods using SOL and ASP showed similar results. The results can guide fire mitigation actions on the park.

Keywords

• Forest fires
• Methodology
• Geographical information systems