Project no. Fp6-018505 Project Acronym fire paradox
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- 4.6Comparative analysis of the fire detection systems at the national scale
- 4.6.1Terrestrial detection
- 4.6.2Aerial detection
- 4.6.3New Technologies
- 4.6.4Geographical cover and percentage of detection
- 4.6.5Human resources
4.5.6Raising the alarmIn order to ensure an effective response to emergencies caused by forest fires, it is imperative to guarantee not only proper detection but also notification of any fire or risk of fire that may occur. For this reason, the various Autonomous Region Forest Fire Plans establish the procedure whereby, upon detection and depending on who detects the fire, the appropriate means are effectively activated, mobilised and coordinated. As a rule, there are two variants in the different plans. The first consists of centralising the notification received from individuals or security services on 112, the regional emergency service number, which notifies the Coordination Centre (CECO). On the other hand, if a guard detects the fire, this person notifies the CECO directly. The second system consists of citizens calling 112, while other actors get in contact directly with the CECO (see Fig. 18). In the event of extinction agents receiving the alarm directly, they proceed immediately to tackle the fire while simultaneously informing the CECO. 
Source: Civil Protection Plan for Forest Fire Emergencies. Region of Murcia (2007). Figure 31 - Schema of raising the alarm
According to the questionnaire results, Austria is the only country that doesn’t have any detection system. The explanation is that wildfires are not an important problem in this country. In 2005, Austria had 1759 wildland fires, with a total burnt area of 104 ha and 954 forest fires that resulted in 74 ha of burnt land. Most of the fires were smaller than 1 ha, the largest fire event resulted in 5 ha of burnt area (DGJRC 2005). All the others fifteen countries use at least one of the mentioned detection systems. The most common detection systems are lookout towers, used by thirteen countries (87%), followed by the mobile brigades with eleven answers (73%). Also in the field of the terrestrial detection, seven countries (47%) have volunteer programs that complement the official terrestrial detection (Table 13). Table 13 – Detection systems distribution per country
France, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Slovenia use video surveillance together with lookout towers networks. This technology continues to be somewhat expensive and there is an international discussion about its advantages and disadvantages (Gibos, 2006), which could explain its use by fewer countries. The use of airplanes and helicopters for the aerial vigilance is not very frequent. Only eight countries use airplanes, and only Italy and Spain use helicopters for this purpose. Sweden is the only country that relies solely on airplanes for surveillance actions. This situation is due to the reduction of the State contributions for fire detection, together with the civil protection act that assigns the responsibility of forest protection to its owners. In consequence, the big owners or municipalities hire airplanes to cover small areas.4 Although the different detections systems complement each other, just seven countries use both the terrestrial and aerial systems. As presented in Table 13, we observe that Italy and Spain use lookout towers, mobile brigades, airplanes and helicopters. Portugal, Morocco, Poland and France utilize the same systems with the exception of the helicopters and Hungary relies only on mobile brigades and airplanes. The numerous forest fires and area burnt in Portugal, Spain and France, as well as the relevant extension of forest area under high and medium fire risks (DGJRC, 2005) can explain the use of all these detection systems. Whilst Poland doesn’t belong to the Mediterranean countries group, the fire risk danger has been increasing in the last years, as well as the number of fires and area burnt (DGJRC, 2005). 4.6.1Terrestrial detectionTable 14 shows that the percentage of forest area in these eleven countries is very different between them, from a minimum of 6% in the case of Tunisia, to a maximum of 65% in Slovenia. The countries with the larger forestland are Sweden, followed by Spain and France. Table 14 – Relation between area of forest land and the number of lookout towers
* Data source: FAO, Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005 (www.fao.org/forestry/32185/en/) ** Data Source: FIREPARADOX questionnaires Module 7. *** Case studies for FIREPARADOX Taking into account the number of lookout towers and the forest area for each country (Table 14), we see that Cyprus is the country with the largest number of lookout towers per thousand hectares (0,161), followed by Poland, Latvia and Portugal, with 0.069, 0.063 and 0.062, respectively. Considering the ratio of human resources by each lookout tower, the numbers are very variable, from a minimum of one person by lookout in Morocco, to a maximum of four persons in Portugal. All the other countries that answered this question have two or two and a half persons per lookout. The number of mobile brigades by country is even more variable according to the questionnaire answers. The minimum belongs to Slovenia with 5 brigades, Cyprus has 26 brigades, Morocco has 64, Bulgaria can vary from 80 to 150, Portugal has 389 and Spain has 551 brigades. Poland and France are the countries with more mobile brigades, namely 4213 brigades and 997 brigades. These brigades are composed by two or three elements depending on the country. 4.6.2Aerial detectionAs mentioned above, Italy and Spain use planes and helicopters to perform aerial detection. France, Hungary, Morocco, Poland and Portugal utilize only airplanes as aerial means. Although Morocco has aerial detection, it is not an organized aerial surveillance system for forest fires detection. However, since the forest with higher risk is located near the aerial navigation corridor to Europe (Rif forests) and to the Middle East (Rif Forest, the oriental and Middle Atlas), the Civil Aviation Directorate sensitises the aerial companies to collaborate in the forest fires detection and alert. 4.6.3New TechnologiesWhile much research has been done in the past years, from fifteen countries, merely France, Italy Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain utilize some new technologies to complement the traditional means as follows:
Only Castilla and Leon (Spain) use satellite images for meteorological prediction and hot spot detection; other countries also mentioned this system, but only to follow the development of a fire and to quantify the burnt area. 4.6.4Geographical cover and percentage of detectionShould the several detection systems all together cover each country national forest land? Looking at the questionnaire answers, almost half of the answers refer that although working all together, the systems do not have a full geographical cover. In some cases, even though these systems do not cover all the forest area, the critical areas where the fire risk is bigger, at least one of the detection systems is present. As an example, we can look to Poland, where it isn’t all the forest that is cover, but only the critical areas. This coverage also depends of the fire season and the availability of resources. For instance, Portugal has 234 lookout towers, however these amount of towers only work in full in the most critical phase of the year, during the CHARLIE phase (from 1st of July until 30th September). In France, and in some Autonomic regions in Spain, the timetable of the different detection systems depends on the daily meteorological risk. In addition, the availability of financial resources is a limitation to the use of all the resources available in the countries. If we look to the Morocco example, although they do not have an institutional responsibility to the aerial surveillance, there is a general agreement between the commercial companies of airlines that fly over forest land that if they spot some smoke they will communicate to the competent entities.
Table 15 – Employment contracts by detection system
(SW – Seasonal worker; T – Technician; NG – Nature guards; O – others; V – Volunteers; M – Militaries) Table 15 shows us the importance of the seasonal workers in lookout towers functioning. All the countries using this system (except Slovenia) utilize this type of workers, and Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria and France complement them with the help of technicians, nature guards or forest rangers. Concerning the mobile brigades, although several countries utilize seasonal workers, these are also complemented by nature guards, volunteers, technicians and employees. There’s a small tendency for more specialized human resources when working with video surveillance. In this case, the work is developed predominantly by technicians, which are complemented by seasonal workers or nature guards. Aerial surveillance, being a more expensive vigilance, is only performed by six countries that use technicians and seasonal workers or, in the Spanish case, also complemented by militaries, nature guards and volunteers. It was asked in the inquiry, which were the institutions that coordinate each of the detection systems. If we look to the lookout towers, the coordination of these surveillance systems belongs in 10 countries to the forest services. The exceptions are for instance, Portugal, where the coordination of all the detection belongs to a police corps, or Morocco where the High Commissariat to fight Desertification has the coordination. Although the coordination belongs to one or two institutions, several other entities are partners on this task. These partnerships evolve police forces, nature park services, forest owners associations fire fighters, civil protection among others. Concerning the specific training each worker group receives to perform their duties, almost all countries give training, with the exception of Morocco and Lithuania. In the majority of the countries training is given by institutions related to Forest or to Civil Protection (). Table 16 – Institutions that provide specific training for each detection system
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