Susceptibility to wildfire in a conservation unit located in the transition region of Cerrado and Atlantic Forest Biomes, Brazil

Abstract

Created in 2014, the Serra da Gandarela National Park (SGNP), is repeatedly affected by wildfires. This Conservation Unit is located in the Iron Quadrangle (MG), in a transition zone between the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest biomes, and is characterized by a complex mosaic of phytophysiognomies. The aim of this investigation was to compare the performance of two risk mapping models for forest fire in the SGNP and its surroundings, based on two different approaches, being one by multicriteria analysis, AHP method and the other a simple probability method, called Hot Spot History, which provided information on the areas of highest and lowest risk and their environmental and human characteristics. Spatial data from remote sensing and GIS were used to simulate, in sequence, the fire ignition, the fire spread and, finally, the risk of wildfire. The validation of the risk models was performed by the Kappa coefficient (K). The results showed that the model based on the History of Hot Points obtained greater accuracy (0.61) than the model generated by the AHP method (0.54). The Brazilian Savanna, Rupestrian Fields and Field coverings were the most susceptible to wildfire, as they are formed by herbaceous vegetations and are located very close to urban agglomerations and roads. The slopes oriented to the North and West were important for the prediction of wildfires slope and, on the other hand, the slope of the terrain was not important to discretize the areas of greater and lesser fragility to the referred ecological disturbance.

Fire danger in the supply areas of hydroelectric reservoirs under the restoration process in the south of Minas Gerais, Brazil

“…The study area's rocky outcrops are adorned with herbaceous vegetation adapted to the substrate-imposed conditions and are also found in conjunction with the region's more sloped areas. The inclination factor improves the propagation efficiency in the direction of the slope (Lacerda et al, 2022;Guo et al, 2024), as it enhances fuel drying through more effective heat transfer to the adjacent upper parts (Mitsopoulos et al, 2019), corroborating our results that show a greater density of ignition points per square kilometer in steeper terrains.…”

Risco pontencial de fogo na prevenção de incêndios florestais: Estudo de caso no Parque Nacional da Serra da Canastra - MG

“…Gigovićet al, (2018), point out that geospatial data and Geographic Information Systems that apply the interaction of environmental as well as anthropogenic variables, simulating the possibility of ignition and propagation of forest fires, have been used in order to analyze the susceptibility to the occurrence of fires, through spatial-temporal models, characterizing the dynamics of natural and anthropogenic factors. Lacerda et al, (2022), point out that spatial models of forest fires have contributed to the management of PAs, enabling prevention and combat planning.…”