historical fire behavior of forest fires occurred from 2002 to 2011 in the forest enterprise minas de matahambre, pinar del río, cuba

Abstract

The forest fires are a global problem. In all cases, they occur and develop showing certain regularities, imposed mainly by weather, fuel and topography. To evaluate these regularities of spatial and temporal character helps to explain the phenomenon in order to plan their management in a given territory. In correspondence with the above mentioned the present paper aims at evaluating the historical fire behavior of the forest fires occurred from 2002 to 2011 in the Forest Enterprise Minas de Matahambre. To carry out this objective the database, which collects the fires occurred at the enterprise, was updated. Its data processing was carried out with the Integrated Management Database System for Forest Fires (SIMBDIF, in Spanish). In addition, it can be mentioned that in the same period 87 fires occurred and as a result affected a surface of 1,515.11 ha. The fire season was observed between the months of March and May. During the day the 58.62% of fires occurred between 14:00 and 17:00 hours. The main causes were the streak of lightning with the 62.07%, while the 47.08% of burned areas was caused by negligence. Most fires (72.41%) are grouped into the size class I and II (< 4.0 ha), indicating the good efficiency of the protection service.