Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Forest fires have been an influential disturbance on the flora and the fauna both in the Boreal and in the Mediterranean regions. Through this project, it has been shown that this problem is very different from one region to the other. In the Boreal region, there is a lack of forest fires due to the intense and efficient fight against them, which may result in a less diverse flora and fauna. In the Mediterranean region the forest fires burn every year a large surface, sometimes even jeopardizing people's lives.
This enormous difference is mainly due to climatic and socio-economic factors. In Boreal
regions, the main cause for forest fires is lightning ignition, while in the Mediterranean region it involves just a low percentage of the total forest fires; most of them are caused by men, with a high incidence of arson due to different conflicts.
Once that the forest fires are not any longer a problem in the Boreal region, the use of
prescribed burning has received a renewed interest. By mean of this, it is tried to favour the different fire-adapted organisms and to create favourable conditions for forest regeneration.

Different studies have shown the benefits of the forest fires for the regeneration of several species. The present goal for forest companies, as expressed in their policies and in the forest certification criteria, is to burn a specific amount of land. It is likely that in the future, emphasis will shift towards obtaining maximal ecological gains with the aid of fire. The problem of fire management is not to abolish fire but to establish its proper proportion, to reconcile fire use with fire control. What this means specifically will vary with the specific purposes of specific lands. Within the Mediterranean region the current situation is completely different. Despite all the
efforts made and all the money invested, forest fires keep on being a serious problem. The
number of forest fires is increasing every year, although the total area burnt is slightly
decreasing. Even though a big effort is being made throughout this entire region, forest fires still spread over large surfaces every year. Throughout this project, I have also gone through the different ways of fighting forest fires, from the prevention to the extinction, and some of the new technologies that are already being used.