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Importance
with respect to desertification
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Forest
removal, by burning, frequently simplifies forest
landscapes, by e.g. truncating age distributions and
reducing diversity, increasing vulnerability with
respect to wildfire.
The
fire management initiative includes a systematic application
of risk assessment, fire safety, fire prevention and
fire hazard reduction techniques.
Effective
fire protection cannot be accomplished solely through
the acquisition of equipment, personnel and training.
The area's infrastructure also must be considered
during the formulation of development plans. Specific
fire hazard areas should be evaluated and reasonable
safety standards adopted, covering such elements as
adequacy of nearby water supplies, routes or throughways
for fire equipment, addresses and street signs, and
maintenance.
The
Fire Plan is a long-term investment to protect communities
and natural resources, and most importantly, the lives
of fire fighters and the public. Fire management plans
are fundamental strategic documents that guide the
full range of fire management related activities.
The specific purposes of Fire Management Plans are
to:
- Identify and implement
methods to restore and maintain ecosystems and ecosystem
processes that allow fire to play its natural role
in the ecosystem, as wildland fire.
- Reduce the risk
of fire to cultural resources (i.e. historic buildings,
pictographs) through fuel reduction or fire suppression
to prevent fire damage. Fire will also be used as
a tool to manage cultural landscapes.
- Reduce the risk
of catastrophic fire, including those near the wildland/urban
interface (communities, government and commercial
buildings, and other developed areas), while continuing
to reverse the adverse effects from past fire suppression
and prevention activities.
- Execute a fire
management program that provides a safe environment
for firefighters and the public, including safe
operations and fire management related facilities
(helibases, fire camps, fire stations).
- Fire management
infrastructures must be related to the forest surface
to sustain protective cover.
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International
Conventions and agreements
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The
UNCCD recognised the particular conditions of the
Mediterranean affecting desertification, inlcuding
the extensive forest coverage losses due to frequent
wildfires (Convention text as of September 1994 and
as of September 2001)
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Secondary
objectives of the indicator
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This
indicator represents the level of risk of fire on
land and the potential fire damage to forest and rural
ecosystems.
Information
about the Management Infrastructure for Protecting
Forests from Fire can help in addressing political
measures to recognise the highest fire hazard areas.
It can be used to organise an efficient fire fighting
system to reduce the fire problem and indirectly combat
desertification.
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