Transcript Forest Fires in Europe: an overview Paulo Barbosa – European Commission

Forest Fires in Europe: an overview
Paulo Barbosa
Joint Research Centre – European Commission
Institute for Environment and Sustainability
21020 Ispra (VA), Italy
http://natural-hazards.jrc.it
European Forest Fire Information System
EFFIS
Objectives:
• Support the existing European Commission regulation
Forest Focus on forest fires
Customer/users:
• Customer DGs:
DG ENV, DG REGIO
• Users: Civil Protection Services, Forest Fire
Services, Environmental Services
European Forest Fire Information System EFFIS
Modules
Fuel/Biomass
Fire Risk
Fire Risk
Burnt Areas
Products:
•Cartography
•Tables
Risk zoning
•Statistics
CO2 emissions
Regeneration
Common Core
Database (Forest Focus)
Customer and user:
EP
Member States
EC
Common Core Database (since early 80’s)
Existing information on forest fires events collected
by the Countries
•Number of fires
•Fire location (commune level)
•Date: start (first alarm) / end
•Time of intervention / Time of extinction
•Burnt area: forest / non-forest
•Cause (unknown, natural, accident, deliberate)
Some Statistics

In average around 500 000 ha burn per year throughout
Southern Europe (P, E, F, I, EL).

Around 96% of the fires are human caused

> 50% of the fires start between 12:00 and 18:00 h
> 50% of the burnt area is burned in the same
period


50% of the fires have a delay of less than 15 minutes
between fire detection and initial attack

The average final size of a fire after an initial attack delay of
15 minutes is ~ 8 ha
Burnt are a in the
EU Me dite rrane an re gion
800000
600000
400000
200000
Ye ar
2002
2000
1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
1986
1984
1982
0
1980
Burnt area (ha)
1000000
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
Burnt area (ha)
Portugal
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
Year
720-1440
360-720
300-360
240-300
180-240
120-180
Delay [min]
60-120
45-60
30-45
25-30
20-25
15-20
10-15
5-10
<5
Relative fire frequency
EUMed
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
720-1440
360-720
300-360
240-300
180-240
120-180
Delay [min]
60-120
45-60
30-45
25-30
20-25
15-20
10-15
5-10
<5
Relative fire frequency
Portugal
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
720-1440
360-720
300-360
240-300
180-240
120-180
Delay [min]
60-120
45-60
30-45
25-30
20-25
15-20
10-15
5-10
<5
Relative fire frequency
Italy
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Delay [min]
720-1440
360-720
300-360
240-300
180-240
120-180
60-120
45-60
30-45
25-30
20-25
15-20
10-15
5-10
<5
Average burned area [ha]
EUMed
40
30
20
10
1’
Forest Fires and Remote Sensing Applications in
Europe
•Pre-fire (fuels mapping, risk mapping)
•During fire (Detection, Monitoring, smoke
management )
•Post-fire (Burnt Area Mapping, fire emissions)
Fuel Maps: e.g. Prometheus Fuel Models
1’
Fire Detection and monitoring

AVHRR

ATSR

MODIS

Most of these fire products show a more or less
large overestimation of fire detections (false
alarms) in Southern Europe
They are only a sample due to reduced number
of daily acquisitions

MSG data
Channel Bands
ID
Wavelength Bandwidth
(µm)
(µm)
Range
Spatial Res
(Km)EU
HRV
0.75
0.6 to 0.9
0 - 459 W/m2 sr
µm
~2
0.635
0.56 to 0.71
0 - 533 W/m2 sr
µm
4-6
VIS 0.8
0.81
0.74 to 0.88
0 - 357 W/m2 sr
µm
4-6
IR 1.6
1.64
1.50 to 1.78
0 - 75 W/m2 sr
µm
4-6
3.92
3.48 to 4.36
0 - 335 K
4-6
IR 8.7
8.70
8.30 to 9.10
0 - 300 K
4-6
IR 10.8
10.80
9.80 to 11.80
0 - 335 K
4-6
IR 12.0
12.00
11.00 to 13.00 0 - 335 K
4-6
6.25
5.35 to 7.15
0 - 300 K
4-6
7.35
6.85 to 7.85
0 - 300 K
4-6
VIS0.6
IR 3.9
IR 6.2
Visible
&
NIR
IR / Window
Water vapour
IR 7.3
IR 9.7
IR / Ozone
9.66
9.38 to 9.94
0 - 310 K
4-6
IR 13.4
IR / CO2
13.40
12.40 to 14.40 0 - 300 K
4-6
Fire Detection Requirements
PROPERTY
USER
REQUIREMENT
MSG
Detection time
15 – 20 minutes
15 minutes
Minimum detected fire
50 m2 (0.005 ha)
0.06 – 0.5 ha ?
Geo-location accuracy
300 – 500 meters
0.5 pixels ?
Alarm classification
Intensity
Fire Radiative Energy
False alarm discrimination
5 – 15 %
Diurnal Cycle+
saturation
Smoke Dispersion

MSG can be used for tracking smoke dispersion

MSG can be used to calibrate smoke dispersion
models (SPREAD Project)
Burnt Area Mapping

Landsat TM (> 1ha)

IRS WiFS (> 50 ha)

IRS AWIFS (> 5 ha)

MSG…..?
BURNT AREA AND DAMAGE ASSESSMENT:
PORTUGAL 2003
Area burnt (ha)
% of total burned
Agriculture
45206
11.9
Forest land
323009
85.2
Barren
8996
2.4
Social
1827
0.5
379038
100.0
Land use
Total
Fire emissions

MSG useful for fire emission estimates?

Sugested use of Fire Radiative Energy as a
surrogate of Burned Biomass (Flasse, Roberts)
CO2   Av  Bv  C  Ev
v
Av burned area
(m2)
Bv biomass (g m-2)
C burning efficiency (g g-1)
Evemission coefficient for CO2
Regional estimates of CO2 emissions