• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.150-162
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• 2011

For the period between 1991 and 2009, the annual average of 448 forest fires occurred in Korea. Above all, approximately 94% of the total fires frequently occurred during the spring and fall seasons. Therefore, we need to minimize the damage of forest fire and manage them systematically. In this study, we analyzed the spatio-temporal distribution patterns for the frequency of forest fire occurrences by each city and gun during dry season between 1990s and 2000s using GIS. Then we compared to analyze the frequency of forest fire occurrence by ten-day intervals in 2000s with that in 1990s. As a result of analysis, early April showed the highest frequency of forest fire occurrence in both 1990s and 2000s. Compared to the 1990s and 2000s, the regional change of forest fire showed the most frequent fire events around Chungcheong province. Especially extra 27 fires increased in Daejeon city, and the second most frequent fire had more than 10 fires in Jeolla province and Incheon. However, the number of fire frequency decreased by 12 fires at the end of April in Hongcheon-gun(the province of Gangwon). This is the largest drop over the study period. We consider that this paper will utilize usefully to establish regional counterplan for forest fire prevention by understanding regional forest fire patterns from seasonal change.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.149-157
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• 2016

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.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.24-34
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• 2024

Fire, being primarily a natural phenomenon, is impossible to control, although it is feasible to map the forest fire risk zone, minimizing the frequency of fires. The spread of a fire starting in any stand in a forest can be predicted, given the burning conditions. The natural cover of the land and the safety of the population may be threatened by the spread of forest fires; thus, the prevention of fire damage requires early discovery. Satellite data and geographic information system (GIS) can be used effectively to combine different forest-fire-causing factors for mapping the forest fire risk zone. This study mainly focuses on mapping forest fire risk in the Madikhola watershed. The primary causes of forest fires appear to be human negligence, uncontrolled fire in nearby forests and agricultural regions, and fire for pastoral purposes which were used to evaluate and assign risk values to the mapping process. The majority of fires, according to MODIS events, occurred from December to April, with March recording the highest occurrences. The Risk Zonation Map, which was prepared using LULC, Forest Type, Slope, Aspect, Elevation, Road Proximity, and Proximity to Water Bodies, showed that a High Fire Risk Zone comprised 29% of the Total Watershed Area, followed by a Moderate Risk Zone, covering 37% of the total area. The derived map products are helpful to local forest managers to minimize fire risks within the forests and take proper responses when fires break out. This study further recommends including the fuel factor and other fire-contributing factors to derive a higher resolution of the fire risk map.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.1-11
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• 2022

Recently, climate change has been regarded as a major cause of large-scale forest fires worldwide, and there is concern that more frequent and severe forest fires will occur due to the level of greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, the daily Keetch and Byram Drought Index (KBDI) of the Baekdudaegan in Chungcheong region including Sobaeksan, Songnisan, and Woraksan National Parks were calculated to assess effect of climate change on the forest fire potential- severity of annual maximum KBDI and frequency of high KBDI days. The present (2000~2019) and future KBDI(2021~2040, 2041~2060, 2081~2090) were calculated based on the meteorological observation and the ensemble regional climate model of the SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios with a spatial resolution of 1-km provided by Korea Meteorological Administration(KMA). Under the SSP5-8.5 scenario, 6.5℃ increase and 14% precipitation increase are expected at the end of the 21st century. The severity of maximum daily KBDI increases by 48% (+50mm), and the frequency of high KBDI days (> 100 KBDI) increases more than 100 days, which means the high potential for serious forest fires. The analysis results showed that Songnisan National Park has the highest potential for forest fire risk and will continue to be high in intensity and frequency in the future. It is expected that the forest vulnerability of the Baekdudaegan in the Chungcheong region will greatly increase and the difficulty in preventing and suppressing forest fires will increase as the abundance of combustible materials increases along with climate changes.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.148-156
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to analyze the patterns of forest fire possibly related with Asian dust event and carry out a correlation analysis between forest fire occurrence and existence or not of the Asian dust event during dry seasons i.e. February to May in 2000 to 2008. To study the correlation of forest fire and Asian dust, we surveyed information of Asian dust observations, forest fire statistics, fire danger rating index, weather data such as temperature, relative humidity and wind speed of the day occurring the forest fire. As a consequence of analysis, the regional frequency of Asian dust was the highest in Gyeonggi and Chungbuk divisions. Frequencies of forest fire occurrence by the Asian dust events were the highest in the day before three days of the Asian dust event. The highest frequent regions of forest fire occurrence were district of boundary line between Gyeonggi and Western of Gangwon, Chungbuk and Gyeonbuk inland. The correlation between forest fire and fire danger rating index showed the high correlation with the day before three days and after three days of the Asian dust event. These correlation coefficients were 0.50038 and 0.53978 to 1% significance level. The result of analysis between the frequency of forest fire occurrence and wind speed had a highly negative relationship at all the Asian dust days, the day before and after three days. The correlation coefficients had been -0.58623 to -0.61245 to 1% significance level. Relative humidity showed a little of negative relationship with forest fire occurrence in -0.2568(p ${\leq}$ 0.01) for the Asian dust day and -0.35309(p ${\leq}$ 0.01) for next three days. Moreover, at the day before three days of Asian dust events, it was -0.23701 to 1% significance level. However, the mean temperature did not correlate with frequency of forest fire occurrence by Asian dust events at all.

• 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 People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.693-705
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• 2021

Background and objective: This study was conducted to investigate the effects of forest therapy programs on reducing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and improving mood states in fire officers. Methods: To determine PTSD, depression, and mood states before and after the forest therapy program, the survey results of 185 fire officers were analyzed. Frequency analysis was conducted to identify the demographic characteristics of the participants, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test to analyze the differences among group. Results: As a result of a comparative analysis of PTSD before and after the program, there was a significant decrease in PTSD from 10.65 ± 12.00 to 5.64 ± 8.29 after the program. Depression also showed a statistically significant difference from 3.21 ± 4.00 to 2.21 ± 3.47 after the program. As a result of comparatively analyzing mood states before and after the program, there was an increase in positive factors and a decrease in negative factors. Total mood disturbance (TMD) also showed a statistically significant decrease from 5.78 ± 17.37 to -7.38 ± 10.35 after the program. Conclusion: This study has significance in verifying that forest therapy programs can bring psychological changes to fire officers, and these results can be used as a basis for stress management and relief of fire officers.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.14-26
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• 2016

This study analyzed the correlation between the standardized precipitation index(SPI) and forest fire occurrences using monthly accumulative rainfall data since 1970 and regional fire occurrence data since 1991. To understand the relationship between the SPI and forest fire occurrences, the correlations among the SPI of nine main observatory weather stations including Seoul, number of fire occurrences, and log of fire occurrences were analyzed. We analyzed the correlation of SPI with fire occurrences in the 1990s and 2000s and found that in the 1990s, the SPI of 3 months showed high correlation in Gyeonggi, Gangwon, and Chungnam, while the SPI of 6 months showed high correlation in Chungbuk, and the SPI of 12 months showed high correlation in Gyeongnam, Gyenongbuk, Jeonnam, and Jeonbuk. In the 2000s, the SPI of 6 months showed high correlation with the fire frequency in Gyeonggi, Chungnam, Chungbuk, Jeonnam, and Jeonbuk, whereas the fire frequency in western Gangwon was highly correlated with the SPI of 3 months and, in eastern Gangwon, Gyeongnam, and Gyenongbuk, with the SPI of 1 month. In the 1990s, distinct differences in the drought condition between the SPI of 3 months and 12 months in the northern and southern regions of Korean Peninsula were found, whereas the differences in both the SPI of 1 month and 6 months were found in the Baekdudaegan region except western Gangwon since the 2000s. Therefore, this study suggests that we can develop a model to predict forest fire occurrences by applying the SPI of 1-month and 6-month data in the future.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.161-164
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• 2009

Forest fire simulation tests were performed with polymer and porcelain insulators at GOCHANG Power Testing Center. These tests consisted of open flames causing a temperature rise of up to $600{\sim}800^{\circ}C$ measured at the insulator surfaces. Mechanical and electrical characteristics such as the specific mechanical load, the low frequency dry flashover voltage and the impulse flashover voltage were analyzed for the polymer insulators before, during and after the simulation tests and then compared to the porcelain insulators. At the end of the fire simulation tests, there was no detrimental deterioration of any of the insulators. All the insulators passed the KEPCO specification criteria. This study showed that the forest fire simulation had no impact on the polymer insulators.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.250-259
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• 2006

This study looks into forest fire occurrence hazards according to the change of temperature and humidity over thirty years at interval of ten days. We used data from the forest fire inventory from 1995 to 2004 and weather data such as average temperature and relative humidity for 30 years from 1971 to 2000. These data were expressed as a database with ten-day intervals for 76 weather stations. Forest fire hazards occurred in the spring season from the end of March to the middle of April. For the first step, the primitive surface of temperature and humidity was interpolated by IDW (the standard interpolation method). These thematic maps have a 1 km by 1 km grid spacing resolution. Next, we executed a simple regression analysis after extracting forest fire frequency, temperature and humidity values from 76 weather stations. The results produced a coefficient of determination ($R^2$) ranging from 0.4 to 0.6. Moreover, the estimation of forest fire occurrence hazards during early April was very high at Gyeongbuk Interior, Chungcheong Interior and part of Gangwon. The range of temperature and humidity having an influence on forest fire occurrence was as follows: average temperature and relative humidity in early April was $9-12^{\circ}C$ and 61-65%. At the end of March, temperature was $6-10^{\circ}C$, humidity 62-67%, and temperature was $11-14^{\circ}C$ and humidity 60-67% in the middle of April.