Development of forest fire risk map with GIS based AHP method

Our country is located in a region sensitive to forest fires due to the Mediterranean climate, vegetation and topography of the south and west coasts. Every year, forest fires for various reasons cause thousands of hectares of forest area to be ash. Fires damage the ecosystem as well as have economic consequences. The first thing to do for an effective fight against forest fires is to identify areas with fire risk. While the Mediterranean, Aegean and Marmara coasts, where the Mediterranean climate and fire-sensitive tree species are dominant, are at primary risk against forest fires, the forests located on the Black Sea coasts where the Black Sea climate is dominant are less risky in terms of fire. The fire risk varies according to various parameters. A risk map can be created by analyzing parameters such as forest structure, topographic features, climate, proximity to various points (such as roads, settlements, agricultural areas). Fire risk data will shed light on the measures that can be taken against fire. In this study, GIS (Geographic Information Systems) based Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was used to create the fire risk map of Mersin Regional Directorate of Forestry, which has fire sensitive forests. Then, the accuracy of the fire risk map was evaluated by taking into account the previous fires in the regional directorate. As a result, 13.87% of the study area was determined as very high, 25.87% high, 24.68% medium, 22.44% low and 13.14% very low risk areas. The results showed that tree species are the most effective risk factor in forest fires, and stand age comes second. The accuracy of the fire risk map created by the AHP method was evaluated by using the location information of a total of 562 fires in Mersin Regional Directorate of Forestry between 2003-2022 that damaged forest areas. In order to determine the accuracy of the fire risk map, ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) curve method was used in ArcGIS environment. As a result, the AUC (Area Under Curve) value was found to be approximately 74%, and these values showed that the fire risk map developed for Mersin Regional Directorate of Forestry was moderately reliable. With this study, it has been demonstrated that it is possible to produce reliable fire risk maps in a short time using the GIS-based AHP method.