GIS-BASED SPATIAL MODEL FOR WILDFIRE SIMULATION: MARMARİS – ÇETİBELİ FIRE A THESIS SUBMITED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES OF THE MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY ERDİNÇ TAŞEL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF GEODETIC AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES NOVEMBER 2003 Approval of the Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences. Prof. Dr. Canan Özgen Director I certifty that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Science. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Oğuz Işık Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for degree of Master of Science. Assist. Prof. Dr. Zuhal Akyürek Supervisor Examining Committee Members Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurünnisa Usul Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vedat Toprak Assist. Prof. Dr. Zuhal Akyürek Assist. Prof. Dr. Lütfi Süzen Y. Müh. Yüksel Erdoğan ABSTRACT GIS-BASED SPATIAL MODEL FOR WILDFIRE SIMULATION: MARMARİS – ÇETİBELİ FIRE TAŞEL, ERDİNÇ M.S., Department of Geodetic and Geographic Information Technologies Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Zuhal Akyürek November 2003, 175 Pages Each year many forest fires have occurred and huge amount of forest areas in each country have been lost. Turkey like many world countries have forest fire problem. 27 % of Turkey’s lands are covered by forest and 48 % of these forest areas are productive, however 52 % of them must be protected. There occurred 21000 forest fires due to several reasons between 1993 and 2002. It is estimated that 23477 ha area has been destroyed annually due to wildfires. The fire management strategies can be built on the scenarios derived from the simulation processes. In this study a GIS – based fire simulating model is used to simulate a past fire occurred in Marmaris – Çetibeli, Turkey, in August 2002. iii This model uses Rothermel’s surface fire model, Rothermel’s and Van Wagner’s crown fire model and Albini’s torching tree model. The input variables required by the model can be divided into four groups: fuel type, fuel moisture, topography and wind. The suitable fuel type classification of the vegetation of the study area has been performed according to the Northern Forest Fire Laboratory (NFFL) Fuel Model. The fuel moisture data were obtained from the experts working in the General Directorate of Forestry. The fire spread pattern was derived using two IKONOS images representing the pre- and post-fire situations by visual interpretation. Time of arrival, the rate of spread and the spread direction of the fire were obtained as the output and 70 % of the burned area was estimated correctly from the fire simulating model. Keywords: Fire Management, Fire Behavior Model, GIS, NFFL Fuel Model, Marmaris – Çetibeli. iv ÖZ CBS TABANLI MEKANSAL ORMAN YANGIN SİMULASYONU: MARMARİS ÇETİBELİ YANGINI TAŞEL, ERDİNÇ Yüksek Lisans, Jeodezi ve Coğrafi Bilgi Teknolojileri Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Y. Doç. Dr. Zuhal AKYÜREK Kasım 2003, 175 Sayfa Diğer dünya ülkelerinde olduğu gibi Türkiye’de de orman yangını problem teşkil etmektedir. Her yıl çok sayıda orman yangını meydana gelmekte ve bu yangınlar sonucunda çok geniş orman alanları yok olmaktadır. Türkiye topraklarının % 27’si ormanlarla örtülü olup bu alanın % 48’ si ekonomik açıdan değerlidir, fakat bu ormanlık alanların % 52’ si koruma altındadır. 1993 ile 2002 yılları arasında yaklaşık 21000 adet orman yangını çeşitli nedenlerden ötürü meydana gelmiş, yıllık kaybedilen orman alanı 23477 hektar olarak belirlenmiştir. Orman yangını yönetimi, simülasyonlar sonucunda elde edilen orman yangını senaryoları üzerine kurulabilir. Bu çalışmada Coğrafi Bilgi Sistemleri v (CBS) tabanlı yangın simülasyon modeli kullanılarak 2002 Ağustos ayında Marmaris – Çetibeli’nde meydana gelen orman yangını simüle edilmiştir. Bu model Rothermel örtü yangın modeli, Van Wagner tepe yangın modeli ve Albini tutuşan ağaç modellerıni bileşik bir şekilde kullanmaktadır. Modelin çalışması için gerekli veri değişkenleri yakıt cinsi, yakıt nemi, topoğrafya ve rüzgar olarak 4 gruba ayrılır. Çalışma alanının yakıt modeli Northern Forest Fire Laboratory (NFFL) yakıt modeline göre en uygun olacak şekilde belirlenmiştir. Yakıt nem verisi Orman Genel Müdürlüğü’nde çalışan uzmanlardan elde edilmiş olup yangın öncesi ve sonrasına ait IKONOS görüntüleri kullanılarak yangının yayılım dokusu görsel olarak belirlenmiştir. Yangın simülasyon modeli tarafından yangının ulaşım zamanı, yayılım hızı ve yönü çıktı olarak oluşturulmuş ve toplam yanan alanın % 70’ i doğru olarak tahmin edilmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Yangın Yönetimi, Yangın Davranış Modeli, CBS, NFFL Yakıt Modeli, Marmaris – Çetibeli. vi Dedicated to people who sacrificed their lives for Green Earth vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank the following people and association for their support, help and advices during the preparation of this thesis. My supervisor, Assist. Prof. Dr. Zuhal Akyürek for her kind supervision, support and contribution throughout this research. The staff of General Directorate of Forest, especially Fire Operation Center Forest Engineers, for their help and providing information. Mr Seyit Demirci, Map Fiduciary of METU, for providing the topographic maps of the study area. Mr. Okan Turan, Çetibeli Forest Region Chief, for providing information about Çetibeli forest fire. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service for sending invaluable journals. INTA Space Imaging Eurasia for providing satellite images of the study area. Thank to my family, mom, dad and brother, for physical and moral full support during thesis. Elif Yurdanur, my love, for her support and helps. All the people, whose names have not been written here, for their help. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………… iii ÖZ .................................................................................................................... v DEDICATION ………………………………………………………………. vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS …………………………………………………... viii TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………… ix LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………... xi LIST OF FIGURES …………………………………………………………. xii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………. 1 1.1. Objectives …………………………………………………... 4 1.2. Outline of the Thesis ………………………………………... 5 2. FOREST FIRES …………………………………………………. 6 2.1. What are Forest Fires? …………………………………...…. 6 2.2. Character of Forest Fires …………..……………………….. 10 2.3. The Impacts of Forest Fires …………………...……............. 15 2.4. The Origins of Forest Fires in Turkey ...………………......... 18 2.5. Forest Fires in Turkey ………………………………………. 20 2.6. Using Geographic Information Systems in Fire Management 25 3. FARSITE: FIRE AREA SIMULATOR MODEL ………………. 34 3.1. The Application Areas ……………………………………… 35 3.2. Capabilities …………………………………………………. 38 3.3. Data Requirements .……………………………………….... 40 3.3.1. Landscape File ………………………………………. 41 3.3.2. ASCII Input Files ……………………………………. 50 ix 3.4. Limitations and Assumptions ………………………………. 56 4. THE CASE STUDY: MARMARİS – ÇETİBELİ WILDFIRE … 60 4.1. The Study Area ..…….……………………………………… 61 4.2. The GIS Data Preparation …………………………………... 66 4.3. Generation of Landscape Input File ..………………………. 72 4.4. Creating ASCII Input Files ...……………………………….. 76 4.5. Simulation Process of Çetibeli Wildfire ...………………….. 77 4.5.1. Çetibeli Fire Simulation Run ..………………………. 90 4.5.2. Calibration and Adjustment of Çetibeli Fire Simulation ……………………………………………... 93 4.6. Discussion of the Results …...………………………………. 98 5. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ........................ 104 5.1. Recommendation for Future Work …………………………. 107 REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 109 APPENDICES A. NFFL FUEL MODEL DESCRIPTION ………………….. 113 B. PARAMETERS AND EXAMPLES OF FARSITE ASCII INPUT FILES …………………………………………….. 140 C. FIRE REGISTER REPORT ……………………………… 148 D. LINEAGE REPORT ……………………………………... 150 E. TABLE OF VEGETATION SYMBOLS ………………... 156 F. RAW METEOROLOGICAL DATA …………………….. 158 G. ASCII INPUT FILES OF ÇETİBELİ ................................. 162 H. SIMULATION LOG FILES ......…………………………. 166 I. FIRE OBSERVATION DATA SHEETS AND DESCRIPTIONS …………………………………………… 171 x LIST OF TABLES TABLE 2.1 The Number and Burned Area of Forest Fires in Some Mediterranean Countries ……………………………………… 8 2.2 The Situation of the Turkey’s Forests ………………………… 11 2.3 The Classes of Fires According to Sizes ……………………… 23 3.1 FARSITE Input Data Files ……………………………………. 42 3.2 Raster File Data Units …………………………………………. 48 3.3 Raster inputs to FARSITE and their usage in the simulation …. 49 4.1 The Largest Forest Fires in Turkey …………………………… 62 4.2 Meteorological Conditions during Fire (obtained from Muğla Meteorological Station) ……………………………………….. 64 4.3 Total Cost of Çetibeli Fire .......................................................... 66 4.4 Raster Output Themes Filename Extensions and Units ………. 89 D.1 Comparison of 10 Elevation Data Which Were Read From DEM and Topographic Map …………………………………... 154 D.2 Lineage Information of Digital Maps …………………………. 155 E.1 Table of Vegetation Symbols Use by General Directorate of Forest ………………………………………………………….. 156 xi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 2.1 Fire Triangle ………………………………………………….. 7 2.2 The Number of Forest Fires in Some Mediterranean Countries 9 2.3 The Burned Area of Forest Fires in Some Mediterranean Countries ……………………………………………………... 9 2.4 Types of Fires ………………………………………………… 10 2.5 The Reasons of the Forest Fires in Turkey in 2002 ………….. 19 2.6 The Overall