Abstract
Forest fires (also known as “wildfires”) are extremely powerful and destructive phenomena which occur with significant frequency and intensity on many parts of the Earth. These fires are part of the Earth system and are an important ecosystem disturbance with varying return frequencies, resulting in landscape alteration and change as well as atmospheric changes on multiple time scales (Chuvieco and Kasischke, 2007). Fire is believed to be an ecological imperative in many of the indigenous, fire prone ecosystems of the world. These indigenous vegetation species are regarded as being fire adapted and dependant upon fire for their survival. Under normal circumstances, fire is therefore regarded as vital in maintaining the delicate balance of hundreds of millions of hectares of tropical and subtropical savannas and open forests, as well as coniferous forests of the temperate and the northern boreal zones that are quite well adapted to natural and even human-influenced fire regimes (Bond and Keeley, 2005). These ecosystems can, however, become more prone to forest fires due to invasive plant infestations, and human activities thus leading to substantial losses of bio-diversity (FAO, 2007). Such fires become a risk when their frequency or intensity destroys forests or vegetation beyond what is naturally admitted and threaten humans and their activities. (2007) identifies several global issues and trends that are impacting the occurrence and consequences of forest fires on the environment and societies, and these include demographic changes, widespread poverty associated with unemployment, exurban migrations and land tenure conflicts, land- use change, expansion of the wildland-urban interface, climate change, and threats to human health, security and peace.
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Keywords
- Normalize Difference Vegetation Index
- Geographic Information System
- Forest Fire
- Advance Very High Resolution Radiometer
- Advance Very High Resolution Radiometer
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Dlamini, W.M.D. (2010). Management of Forest Fire Disaster: Perspectives from Swaziland. In: Jha, M.K. (eds) Natural and Anthropogenic Disasters. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2498-5_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2498-5_16
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