Determination of optimum places for implantation of forest fire towers by means of geographic information system.

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to determine the best places for the location of forest fires towers by means of Geographic Information System (GIS). The pilot area is located in the vicinity of the municipality of Telemaco Borba-Parana, Brazil. The choice of the locations for the towers depends on factors related to the human behavior where considered hazardous. The vulnerability of the environment was also taken into account. The identification of fire hazard and vulnerability factors were used as a basic reference to determine where to place the towers. The variables related to the distance between the towers and their positioning in areas of higher altitude also had been considered. The resulting model improved the previous existing system and enabled an increase of cover on 13.375 ha in the visible areas. In the regions identified with high fires risk the increase on the visibility of the towers was 5.935 ha, corresponding to 44.37 % of the area that became detectable through this model.