Adaptation of the Fórmula de Monte Alegre for the danger prediction of forest fires in the central region of São Paulo state

Adaptação da Fórmula de Monte Alegre para previsão do perigo de incêndios florestais na região central do estado de São Paulo

Abstract

Considering that the formulation of fire danger index helps in the planning of prevention and combat activities, revealing, in advance, the probability of occurrence and spread of forest fires. This work aimed to adjust and to validate the Fórmula de Monte Alegre for areas of eucalypt cultivation in the state of São Paulo. Data on relative humidity, rainfall and records of forest fires from 10/11/2003 to 4/29/2016 were used. For the analysis, the data set was divided into two parts, with the observations between years 2003 and 2013 (75%) being used to adjust FMA, while the data referring to the years 2014 to 2016 (25%) were used to validate the new classification generated according to the establishment of the new threshold values of distinction among the fire danger classes. The results showed that the establishment of new thresholds for the definition of the danger classes provided improvements in the efficiency of the Fórmula de Monte Alegre in predicting the occurrence of fires in the study region.

Keywords:
Forest weather; Hazard index; Forest protection