The Analysis on Forest Fire Occurrence Characteristics by Regional Area in Korea from 1990 to 2014 Year

Abstract

Understanding regional characteristics in forest fire occurrence is important to establish effective forest fire prevention policy in Korea. This study analyzed the characteristics of forest fires occurred in 16 administrative districts for recent 25 years (1990~2014) to examine regional characteristics in forest fire occurrence. Forest fire occurrence reflects regional characteristics depending on climatic factors as well as region`s society-cultural factors. Results showed that the first cause of forest fire occurrence was carelessness by human activities throughout all administrative districts, however, the second cause depends on regional characteristics. As the results of forest fire occurrence period analyzed for 10 days, the most forest fires occurred in the southern region during January to March, while forest fires in the northern region occurred mostly during March to April. We classified forest fire occurrence patterns into three types (centralized: Gyeonggi-do, dispersal: Busan, horizontally distributed: Gyeongsangnam-do) by multi-temporal analysis for forest fire occurrence period.