Zoning forest fire risk in the Manesht and Qalarang Protected Area using a network analysis model and geographic information system

Introduction: Forests are natural resources most of which are destroyed each year by fire. One way to deal with forest fires is to identify the hot spots in forest fires in the region.This phenomenon destroys hectares of trees, shrubs and plants annually, with an annual average of six to fourteen million hectares of the world's forests estimated to be damaged by fires. This reveals the need for research in this area in order to preserve this invaluable resource. Manesht and Qalarang Protected Area is located in the northern Province of Ilam, covering Chardaval and Ivan. The research aims to assess the level of fire hazard in this protected area using network analysis and geographic information systems.Materials and Methods: This will apply the most important factors in the process of forest fires according to experts and researchers in these areas, including 9 factors, such as the density of vegetation, rainfall, temperature, slope, aspect, distance from the road, distance from the village height and distance from the river. In the process of modelling for the evaluation of forest fire risk, a sensitivity model network analysis was conducted over three stages and, in this way, the structure of the model was formed in the SuperDecisions software. The matrix of pairwise comparisons was performed using all of 1 to 9 and, then, the super matrix was prepared. Finally,  the  criteria weighting was determined.Results and Discussion: The results from this study showed that weighting of criteria for density of vegetation, rainfall, temperature, slope, aspect, distance from the road, distance from the village, elevation and distance from the river to the values were 0.294, 0.226, 0.134, 0.121,0.075,0.051, 0.041, 0.29 and 0.025, respectively; hence, density of vegetation, rainfall, temperature and slope had the greatest weight. Finally, by combining the layers according to the weights obtained in ARC GIS software, a zoning map was prepared. The results showed that the top 50% of regions with dense vegetation, southerly directions and slopes greater than 20 percent are prone to fire hazard. The southerly and easterly directions were determined as receiving the maximum amount of sunlight. Approximately 30 square kilometers (10 percent) of the total area of the 62 square-kilometer area were in the very high risk class (20%) in terms of the probability of fire. So it is essential that measures be taken to prevent the occurrence of fire in these areas.Conclusion: In this research, the zoning map was classified in the five classes of very small, low, medium, high and very high. The results showed that, according to maps from the running model, slopes greater than 20 percent, southerly and easterly directions and areas where vegetation density is over 50 percent are among the areas with high and very high risk of likelihood of fires occurring. It is therefore essential that in these areas the necessary measures be taken to prevent the possibility of fire.