Application of GIS and AHP Method in Forest Fire Risk Zone Mapping: a Study of the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve, Kerala, India

Forest fires are one of the most common natural hazards that occur in the Western Ghats region. There are many protected areas in this part of the Western Ghats; therefore, fire can pose a serious threat to habitats and wildlife. In the past, fires have also affected the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve. The objectives of this study are to demarcate the fire risk zones using GIS techniques and to evaluate the influence of each factor on fire initiation. The following factors are selected for the analysis: land cover types, slope angle, aspect, topographic wetness index, distance from the settlement, distance from the road, distance from the tourist spot, and distance from the anti-poaching camp shed. The analytical hierarchy process method is used to determine the weights, and the ArcGIS and ERDAS Imagine software tools are used to create the fire risk zone map. The area of the prepared map is divided into the following five risk zones: very low, low, moderate, high, and very high. The risk zone map has been validated using fire incidence data for the period from 2002 to 2020 collected from the forest fire portal of the Forest Survey of India. It was found that 71% of fire incidences fall in high-risk and very high–risk zones of the prepared map. The validation using the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, with an area under ROC curve value of 0.795, confirms the prediction accuracy of the risk zone map. The prepared fire risk zone map will help the planners, officials of the forest, and the disaster management departments to take appropriate mitigation measures in order to prevent future fires and thereby protect the valuable forest resources.