Evaluation and zoning of forest fire risk using multi-criteria decision-making techniques and GIS

Forests as the lung of land part of our natural resources have an important role to play in the physical and mental health of living beings. Forest fires in Iran and especially in boreal forests had been devastating effects on the appearance of these areas. One method of prevention and risk management established within the field of forest fires is a determination of hazard distance. The purpose of this study was to determine areas vulnerable to fires in Noshahr forests. After identifying the factors contributing to the fire (slope, aspect, elevation, land cover, temperature, precipitation, distance from settlements, distance from roads), weights each of criteria and sub-criteria calculated using multi-criteria decision-making techniques and fire map were prepared in the environment ARC GIS software. The results showed that 17.32 percent of the area which is 311.8 Km² in classes risk high and very high and 17.32 percent of the area which is 311.8 Km² are located in classes risk low and very low. Furthermore, evaluate result's using of kappa statistics coefficient shows that the methods used with coefficient 0.64 are of a good accuracy zoning the forest fire risk.