FOREST FIRE ACTIVITY AND FIRE HAZARD IN THE BAIKAL REGION UNDER MODERN CONDITIONS
E.V. MAKSYUTOVA, E.L. MAKARENKO, A.V. SILAEV
V.B. Sochava Institute of Geography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 664033, Irkutsk, ul. Ulan-Batorskaya, 1, Russia
emaksyutova@bk.ru
Keywords: горимость, плотность пожара, площадь пожара, изменения климата, пожароопасность в лесу по условиям погоды, пожароопасность лесорастительного покрова, космические снимки, fire frequency, fire density, fire area, climate change, fire hazard in the forest according on weather conditions, fire hazard of forest cover, satellite images
Abstract
Forest fire activity in the Baikal region during 2000-2017 is higher as compared to Russia in terms of fire frequency, density, and area. The fire frequency and the average area of a single fire are observed to be increasing. This is facilitated by the fire hazard of the forest cover mainly represented by coniferous stands and by the values of the fire hazard in the forest ac cording to weather conditions varying from average to extreme. Changes in the average air temperature over all months of the fire hazard season contribute to maintaining the danger of fires in the Baikal region. The greatest potential natural fire hazard caused by weather conditions (a Nesterov index of more than 1000 units) was noted in the June-July of 2015 according to the weather stations of Ulan-Ude and Chita. The most developed and populated southern part of the Baikal region suffers from fires most often, which indicates that the fires are caused by humans. For the territory of the Tunkinsky basin, satellite images are used to identify the fire hazardous years of 2001, 2010, 2015, and 2016, and the fire covered areas are determined, which vary from 18 to 32 % for the territory of the Badara tract.
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