FOREST FIRE SUSCEPTIBILITY MODELLING USING REMOTE SENSING DATA, GIS AND AHP ANALYSIS (CASE STUDY: SOUHAN, ALGERIA)

The ecosystem loses significant areas of forests each year because of forest fires, in Algeria, many of those fires are registered, especially during the summer period, this situation has become a national concern, because of the great losses of these vegetal covers every year. The municipality of Souhane is greatly affected by forest fires. The purpose of this study is to make a susceptibility map for the risks of fires in the municipality of Souhane, this by combining GIS and AHP analysis. several studies have already proved the effectiveness of this method. Six factors were selected; We calculated their weights using the AHP method. The results indicated that 51% of this municipality total area are included in the areas of high and very high susceptibility. The fires that occurred in the year 2019 confirmed the relevance of those results, in addition, the combustion index (NBR) calculation has shown that the areas affected by forest fires are those that are once again, located in the areas of high and very high susceptibility. Thus, those are interesting results and this study can help the fire department to improve its forest fire prevention techniques for the municipality of Souhane.