An Opening up and Harvesting System to Prevent and Fight Forest Fires

Abstract

Climatic changes may cause temperature rise and thus increase the risk of a forest fire. Because of the forest fire, in Greece only during the summer of 2007-2009, 71 people died and about 200,000 ha of forest and many homes burned. In Greece, the forests with the greatest exposure to fire risk are usually those located near the residential and touristic areas where there are major pressures on land-use changes. In these areas, the deliberate actions causing forest fires exceed a percentage of 50%. Terrestrial fire protection zones have been set, based on the technical capabilities of the Greek fire-fighting brigades for the study area. Special plastic fire-hoses are used, adapted to the fire-fighting brigades; they are connected in pieces of 30-50 meters up to a total length of 300 meters uphill and 500 meters downhill. The protection coverage was calculated and the study area was divided into not protected, protected, and multiple protected areas. For the mechanization of the harvesting system in Greece the ecological and social issues are taken into account. The proposed opening up model for the research area is given. The proposed model is compatible with the environment and its importance is even greater when we operate in burned areas where the erosion hazards are increased and the preservation of forest soils is the most critical factor for future reforestation.