Forest fire risk zone mapping for Irati National Forest, State of Parana, Brazil

Forest fires cause environmental, social and economic losses. Analysis of environmental factors, associated to recorded forest fires, allows to estimate the fire risk and the establishment of the danger degrees associated to those variables. This research was conducted at Irati National Forest, Parana State, southern Brazil, a conservation unit that occupies 3,618.21 hectares, located at the geographic coordinates 25° 25' S latitude and 50° 36' W longitude. The objective was to develop a fire risk map (FRM) for the area, analyzing the vulnerability of the vegetation, topographical features, priority areas and human presence. Thematic maps of the analyzed parameters were used. These maps were then superimposed, resulting in a final map that corresponds to the FRM for the study area. The results showed that, as for vegetation, 69.95% of the area presents a high risk, while 29.87% presents an extreme risk class, especially in the Pinus and Araucaria forest plantations. Due to the low slope, 89.0% of the area presents low risk. According to the human presence, 7.59% of total area is at some risk. The analysis of the priority areas showed that 62.75% of the area was in the high and extreme risk. Integrating the data in the FRM, it was observed that 43.16% of the study area presents low risk, 41.70% moderate risk, 8.39% high risk, and 6.75% very high risk. These results will help adopt preventive actions in critical areas, improving the fire control system efficiency and optimizing the available resources.