• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.102 no.3
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• pp.415-419
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• 2013

To mitigate forest fire damage, it is needed to concentrate suppression resources on the fire having a high probability to become large in the initial stage. The objective of this study is to develop the large fire judgement model which can estimate large fire possibility index between the fire size and the related factors such as weather, terrain, and fuel. The results of logistic regression equation indicated that temperature, wind speed, continuous drought days, slope variance, forest area were related to the large fire possibility positively but elevation has negative relationship. This model may help decision-making about size of suppression resources, local residents evacuation and suppression priority.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.163-169
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• 2022

Recently, in Korea, if a very large forest fire occurs due to the people's carelessness, it is of great interest because it spreads into a large forest fire. If a wildfire spreads and becomes large, it will inflict great damage (appointment and property), and the damage is irreversible. The best way to extinguish a wildfire is to prevent it before it occurs. If a forest fire occurs due to a failure in prevention, the early firefighting activities to prevent the progress of the forest fire by promptly dispatching it by reporting it and approaching the site as soon as possible should now be managed with a systematic integrated management system. To do so, it is necessary to prepare a preventive system, such as issuing warnings for each weather condition by the Korea Forest Service, consisting of cooperation (support) activities for forest fire prevention by related organizations, etc. In order to minimize the loss of precious lives and forests, measures have been taken to establish a system, to establish a prompt and accurate situation reporting system, and to establish an integrated command system (ICS) for on-site commanders.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2011

In this study, we analyzed the meteorological elements, when large forest fires were occurred, The rate of precipitation was 13% of annual average precipitation. Especially, the stronger wind speed, lower humidity and rainfall than average annual record were the distinct feathers on the year when large forest fire occurred in east coast area in Kangwon region. The average, maximum and maximum instantaneous wind speed was 5.9 m/s, 11.3 m/s and 20.9 m/s when large forest fires occurred. The average, maximum and maximum instantaneous wind speed on large fire occurred were 1.8 m/s, 3.0 m/s and 6.9 m/s faster than and average wind speed when whole forest fires occurred. The results indicated that the large forest fire occurrence had a close correlation with meteorological elements.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.219-228
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• 2022

This study examined the relationship between the number of forest fires and days with no rainfall based on the national forest fire statistics data of the Korea Forest Service and meteorological data from the Open MET Data Portal of the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA; data.kma.go.kr) for the last 30 years (1991-2021). As for the trend in precipitation amount and non-rainfall days, the rainfall and the days with rainfall decreased in 2010 compared to those in 1990s. In terms of the number of forest fires that occurred in February-May accounted for 75% of the total number of forest fires, followed by 29% in April and 25% in March. In 2000s, the total number of forest fires was 5,226, indicating the highest forest fire activity. To analyze the relationship between regional distribution of non-rainfall periods (days) and number of forest fires, the non-rainfall period was categorized into five groups (0 days, 1-10 days, 11-20 days, 21-30 days, and 31 days or longer). During the spring fire danger season, the number of forest fires was the largest when the non-rainfall period was 11-20 days; during the autumn fire precaution period, the number of forest fires was the largest when the non-rainfall period was 1-10 days, 11-20 days, and 21-30 days, showing differences in the duration of forest fire occurrence by region. The 30-year trend indicated that large forest fires occurred only between February and May, and in terms of the relationship with the non-rainfall period groups, large fires occurred when the non-rainfall period was 1-10 days. This signifies that in spring season, the dry period continued throughout the country, indicating that even a short duration of consecutive non-rainfall days poses a high risk of large forest fires.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.232-243
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• 2024

Purpose: Recently, large-scale forest fires caused by climate change, natural disasters, and human factors have been increasing every year in the East Coast and Taebaek Mountains region. Although forest fire extinguishing using helicopters is currently increasing, the need to introduce air force transport aircraft has continued to be raised due to the importance of early fire extinguishment to respond to large forest fires and the difficulty of extinguishing forest fires between sheep. This study seeks to present a plan for developing a post-fire management system for several aspects - achieving operational objectives, overcoming the operating environment, selecting a staging area, and efficient operation measures - to efficiently perform forest fire extinguishing missions using Air Force transport aircraft. Method: Based on literature research on forest fire extinguishing, forest fire extinguishing experiments using fixed-wing aircraft, and the operation status and operation method of forest fire extinguishing helicopters, the pros and cons of helicopter operation and the effects of large forest fire extinguishing using a large transport aircraft (C-130) Analyze the effectiveness of operation through analysis. Results: When extinguishing a large forest fire, an effective CM (Consequence Management) application plan was derived, including effective operation, control, command system, dispatch request, and forest fire extinguishment when integrating helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft (C-130). Conclusion: The application of the concept of CM (Consequence Management) is partially applied to some areas of chemical, biological, and radiological (CBRNE) protection in Korea, but efficient operation, control, and command systems are established when integrated operation of helicopters and large aircraft (C-130) in forest fire extinguishment. the concept of CM (Consequence Management), which is operated in advanced countries, was applied for safety management, dispatch requests, and forest fire extinguishing, thereby contributing to the establishment of a more advanced disaster and post-disaster management system.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.20 no.2 s.62
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• pp.54-63
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• 2006

The number of forest fire under various conditions such as year, month, time, day of the week, region, damaged species, cause, and damaged area are checked, and the statistics of the forest fire causing materials in recent 14 years ('91-'04) are analyzed. The result shows that the year majority of forest fires had happened in last 14 year was 2001 and most of forest fire occurred in April, Sunday, around 14:00 to 15:00. The most damaged region is Gyeongsangbuk-Do, followed by Gangwon-Do, Jeollabuk-Do, and Gyeonggi-Do. The most damaged species is pine tree. The main causes of forest fires are accidental fire and incineration of a field boundary; however, recently, incendiarism is increased. The result of analysis on the damaged area shows that small fires under 5 ha occurred most frequently and large fires (over 30 ha) occurred mostly in Kangwon province (44.2%). The result also shows that the large forest fires (1,113 minutes) require 7.5 time more than the small forest fires (148 minutes). Especially, since average damaged area caused by large forest fire was about 470 ha per incident.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.98 no.5
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• pp.593-601
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• 2009

Forest disturbances including forest fire, insect pests and diseases, landslides, and forest conversion from 1976 to 2005 were investigated to trace the changes of major forest disturbance agents and their characteristics over time in accordance with changes in natural and social environment in South Korea. While the damaged area by insect pests and diseases continuously decreased for the past 30 years, damaged areas by forest fire and landslide were fluctuating through years. The interval of large forest fires has become shorter with increased tree volume. The precipitation between January and April were significantly correlated with large fire occurrences as Pearson's correlation coefficient -0.400 (P=0.029). The composition of major insect pests and diseases damaging Korean forests has been changed continuously, and become more diversified. While damages by pine caterpillar (Dendrolimus spectabilis) and pine needle gall midge (Thecodiplosis japonensis) decreased, damage by introduced pests has been more serious recently. The change of precipitation pattern that brought more localized heavy rain or powerful typhoon resulted in the recent increase in landslide areas. The major land uses to induce forest conversion have been changed, reflecting the changes in industrial structure in South Korea as agriculture and mining in 1970s, mining and golf ranges classified in pasture in 1980s, and road and housing construction in 1990s and 2000s. Changes in forest disturbance patterns in South Korea show that a country's industrial development is jointly working with global warming on forest stand dynamics. Altering energy structure and land use pattern induced by industrial development accumulates forest volume and reforms microenvironments on forest floor, interacting with climate change, inducing shorter interval of large forest fire and changes in major species composition of forest insect pests and diseases.

• Atmosphere
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.457-467
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• 2018

This study investigated the variability of spring (March-May) forest fire risk in Korea for the period 1991~2017 and analyzed its relationship with large-scale climate factors. The Forest Weather Index (FWI) representing the meteorological risk for forest fire occurrences calculated based on observational data and its relationship with large-scale climate factors were analyzed. We performed the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis on the spring FWI. The leading EOF mode of FWI accounting for about 70% of total variability was found to be highly correlated with total number of forest fire occurrences in Korea. The high FWI, forest fire occurrence risk, in Korea, is associated with warmer atmosphere temperature in midwest Eurasia-China-Korea peninsula, cyclonic circulation anomaly in northeastern China-Korea peninsula-northwest pacific, westerly wind anomaly in central China-Korea peninsula, and low humidity in Korea. These are further related with warmer sea surface temperature and enhanced outgoing longwave radiation over Western Pacific, which represents a typical condition for a La $Ni\tilde{n}a$ episode. This suggests that large-scale climate factors over East Asia and ENSO could have a significant influence on the occurrence of spring forest fires in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.41-50
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• 2010

Because mountain area covers a large proportion of entire country, the forest fire have been an important matter in disaster prevention in Korea. Estimation of damaged area after forest fire would be very important because it would be the basis to make budget or to calculate quantities in the restoration plan for the damaged area. In Korea, the damaged area from forest fire is generally surveyed using GPS. In practice, however, the estimation of damaged area from forest fire have been inaccurate in lots of case due to some problems. Korea Forest Service which is taking charge of prevention of forest fire in Korea is managing a large number of helicopters for forest service on the whole country. So, it would be possible to take snapshots of the damaged area after forest fire from the helicopter using a digital camera. This study aims to establish a suitable method to estimate damaged area after forest fire using snapshots which are taken in the air using a digital camera. So, several approaches were implemented and compared. In future, results of this study could be used in a development of a system for investigation of damages from forest fire using digital photographs.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.80-92
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• 2007

Forest fire is the dominant large-scale disturbance mechanism in the Korean temperate forest, and it strongly influences forest structure and function. Moreover burn severity incorporates both short- and long-term post-fire effects on the local and regional environment. Burn severity is defined by the degree to which an ecosystem has changed owing to the fire. Vegetation rehabilitation may specifically vary according to burn severity after fire. To understand burn severity and process of vegetation rehabilitation at the damaged area after large-fire is required a lot of man powers and budgets. However the analysis of burn severity in the forest area using satellite imagery can acquire rapidly information and more objective results remotely in the large-fire area. Space and airbone sensors have been used to map area burned, assess characteristics of active fires, and characterize post-fire ecological effects. For classifying fire damaged area and analyzing burn severity of Samcheok fire area occurred in 2000, Cheongyang fire in 2002, and Yangyang fire in 2005 we utilized Normalized Burn Ratio(NBR) technique. The NBR is temporally differenced between pre- and post-fire datasets to determine the extent and degree of change detected from burning. In this paper we use pre- and post-fire imagery from the Landsat TM and ETM+ imagery to compute the NBR and evaluate large-scale patterns of burn severity at 30m spatial resolution. 65% in the Samcheok fire area, 91% in the Cheongyang fire area and 65% in the Yangyang fire area were corresponded to burn severity class above 'High'. Therefore the use of a remotely sensed Differenced Normalized Burn Ratio(${\Delta}NBR$) by RS and GIS allows for the burn severity to be quantified spatially by mapping damaged domain and burn severity across large-fire area.