American Journal of Plant Sciences, 2013, 4, 705-710 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ajps.2013.43A089 Published Online March 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ajps) Wildfire Occurrence: Integrated Model for Risk Analysis and Operative Suppression Aspects Management Laura Bonora 1 , Claudio Conese 1 , Enrico Marchi 2 , Enrico Tesi 2 , Niccolò Brachetti Montorselli 2 1 Institute of Biometeorology (CNR-IBIMET), Sesto Fiorentino, Firenze, Italy; 2 Department of Forest Science and Technology in Forestry (DISTAF), Firenze, Italy. Email: bonora@ibimet.cnr.it, c.conese@ibimet.cnr.it, enrico.tesi@unifi.it emarchi@unifi.it, montorselli@unifi.it Received January 10 th , 2013; revised February 15 th , 2013; accepted February 20 th , 2013 ABSTRACT Generally forest fires are related to human activities and need an effective fire prevention and suppression organization, based on a deep knowledge of the territory, fire behaviour and suppression system resources network. To organise monitoring, prevention and fire fighting operations, the knowledge of the risk level for different areas is important. To evaluate the probability that a forest fire occurs and to organise prevention and management of fire fighting activities, both simple and easy-to-use risk and operational difficulty indices were implemented. CNR-IBIMET and DISTAF Dept., on commitment of Tuscany Region, developed a multistep process for the evaluation of the risk, that can be used to assess land planning and to organise seasonal fire fighting resources. This model is called Final Risk Index (FRI); it is the result of the combination of the following two indices, which are initially developed separately. The concerned indices are the Global Risk Index (GRI), and Operational Difficulty Index in Fire Fighting (ODIF). The fire risk index processes different parameters to generate two hazards: static and dynamic, merged to obtain the Global Risk Index (GRI). It is very helpful to estimate the probability of forest fire occurrence, but it does not provide information on for- est fire extinction difficulties. The operational difficulty index in fire fighting (ODIF) resumes all the factors affecting fire fighting activity by air and by ground and suggests the extinction efficiency of forest fires in a given area. Thus FRI improves aspects of the fire prevention planning, focused to the needs of a public operative structure. The objective was modelling the links between the main components in ignition and fire fighting actions to produce an easy to use tool to face the emergences, also foreseeing forest fires regime changes in the coming decades. Keywords: Wild-Land Fire; Ignition Risk; Infrastructural Risk; Meteorological Risk 1. Introduction Forest fires are a major concern in many countries in Europe, most notably in the South, in the Mediterranean Region, but also in Central and Northern Europe. Fires are also a major threat in the Northern African countries, or in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean. Increased fire activity in many of these areas has been linked in the past to changes in land-use and land-cover due to the abandonment of the land and consequent so- cioeconomic changes. Climate change, by elevating temperatures and reduc- ing precipitation, will add further risk. Furthermore, in- creasing climate (droughts) or weather (heat waves) ex- tremes are additional threats that we need to be prepared for in the coming years and decades. In this framework, considering the necessity to safe- guard forested areas with particular attention to Mediter- ranean ecosystems prone to wildfire, the present work has been performed on the whole Tuscany Region terri- tory to define a method to classify both ignition risk and operational constrains. An estimation of the risk for all the different forest ecosystem, considering natural and human components of landscape [1], is also very impor- tant; the aims is to establish effective and efficient activi- ties for monitoring, prevention and restoration. It is op- portune to consider that in Tuscany the highest number of forest fires (more than 90%) depends on human ac- tiveties [2], in a direct or indirect way. The ignition probability depends on a very large num- bers of parameters, which should be considered and ana- lysed simultaneously [3]. For the above reasons the Tuscany Region decided to develop a multistep model for the evaluation of the terri- torial risk and constrains; this model is named Final Risk Index (FRI) and is the final result of the combination of two indices, initially developed separately; these indices are the Global Risk Index (GRI) and the Operational Dif- ficulty Index in Fire Fighting (ODIF). The GRI gives landscape classification of the trigger- Copyright © 2013 SciRes. AJPS