Determining Fire Protection Zones In The University Forest Of Taxiarchis – Vrastama In Greece

Climatic changes cause temperature rise and thus increase the risk of forest fires. In Greece the forests with the greatest risk to fire are usually located near residential and tourist areas where there are major pressures on land use changes. Considering the fact that environmental conditions had become even worse (increased temperature, drought and vegetation), the problem of forest fires in Greece, is expected to become more intense. This work focuses on developing an optimization model for the opening up of the forest mountain areas by taking into account the prevention and suppression of forest fires. The research area is the university forest of Taxiarchis – Vrastama of Chalkidiki Prefecture in Northern Greece. The percentage of forest protection area that can be reached by fire hose is examined whether the total hose length corresponds to the actual operational capacity to reach a fire source. A case study was conducted to determine the forest area being protected by fire extinguishing vehicles. This case study corresponds to a fire suppression bandwidth (buffer zone) with a radius of 300 m uphill and 500 m downhill from the origin point where the fire extinguishing vehicle stands. The most important forest technical infrastructures to prevent and suppress fire are roads network (opening up) and their spatial distribution. Patrols of small and agile 4×4 pickups appropriately equipped (hose length of 500 meters with uphill pressure up to 300 meters) for the initial action against the fire during summer coupled with early warning of fire lookout stations adequately ensures the forest protection of University Forest of Taxiarchis – Vrastama. However, spatial allocation of the already existing forest roads needed improvements, for both forest protection purposes and for better management of skidding.