Citation

Mestre A, Manta MI. Int. J. Wildland Fire 2014; 23(4): 510-519.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, International Association of Wildland Fire, Fire Research Institute, Publisher CSIRO Publishing)

DOI

10.1071/WF13003

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This research focuses on the evaluation of the economic value that can be achieved by the use of decision threshold values for the Canadian Fire Weather Index for the projection of different specific wildfire events, as a basis for wildfire prevention activities. The study was done in two testing areas in Spain, corresponding to La Coruña and Alicante provinces. The applied methodology makes use of a simple binary decision model, which has been widely applied for the verification of quantitative meteorological forecasts. Meteorological and wildfire data from a 10-year period (1997-2006) were used. The results show that use of the Fire Weather Index results in potential economic savings, especially in the case of La Coruña. Therefore, the use of the Canadian Fire Weather Index as a basis to develop an early warning system for wildfire is recommended in the two provinces under study.