Forest Fire Risk Mapping of Northeastern Part of Alberta Using Satellite Imagery and GIS

Forest fire is one of the worst ecological disasters in the world. Canada, having a significant amount of densely forest areas, are at constant risk of forest fires. In past decade, there has been some catastrophic wildfire events in Alberta especially at the Fort McMurray, Wood Buffalo region, which is situated at northeastern part of Alberta. These events caused huge economic loss. Though it is quite impossible to control the forest fire completely, proper risk management of forest fire can minimize the losses to a significant level. This process starts with the fire risk zone mapping. Thus, in this study a GIS-based spatial approach was adopted for mapping the forest fire risk of northeastern part of Alberta. Four criteria of forest fire (topographic, climatic, biologic, and human) were considered in this study, and different spatial maps were generated for each criterion using different analysis tools of ArcGIS. Secondary studies and Fuzzy AHP method were applied to determine the weightage of different fire risk factors. The final fire risk zone mapping was produced by integrating all the four criteria based on their weightage. Finally, a classified fire risk map for Wood Buffalo region is generated showing five fire risk classes (very low, low, moderate, high, and very high). The study indicates about 26.14% and 16.04% areas are in high and very high fire risk zones in the study area where fire risk management needs to be considered seriously. The outcome of the study will be helpful for the government and forest authority to identify the high fire risk zones and prepare emergency evacuation plan.