Wildfire emergencies in Lebanon are related to extreme weather conditions, characterized by persistent dry strong winds over flammable land cover species. In this case, the ignition probability increases and, in case it happens, the fire propagation is rapid and difficult to cope with. Wildfires are a common threat to Lebanon’s with already vulnerable forests. Fire-prone areas in Lebanon include woodland/forests in rural and mountain areas; however, plantations and natural forests near urban areas are highly susceptible and pose risks to populations given the high rate of urbanization.
One of the potential detrimental impacts of anthropogenic climate change is increased wildfire occurrence. High temperatures and the recurrence of droughts are strongly associated with an increase in the number of fires and areas burned in a variety of forest types. In many cases, areas once burned and recovering from their pre-fire conditions will be burned again. These circumstances clearly favor a progressive degradation of these ecosystems modifying their structural and hydrological soil conditions, reducing the total biomass, changing the dominant vegetal species, and affecting the land stability. Accordingly, more than 35% of the initial forest cover has deteriorated during the last few decades leading to a forest cover reduction from 35% in 1960 to 13% in 2010 which means 22% in 50 years only (Abdallah et al., 2015). In Lebanon, most wildfires occur between June and October with a maximum frequency in August and September, 25% and 27 of fires percent, respectively.
The latest dramatic events that occurred in Lebanon (such as the mega-fires of October 2019 & 2020) made evident the need for tools able to anticipate the behavior of fire to implement prevention and communication activities in time to save lives and properties. This can be achieved using an ad hoc mathematical and numerical model. Accordingly, the current RISICO model used by NEWSP demonstrated the capability to provide accurate forecasts over the next 72 hours on potential wildfire hazards (pre-fire actions) that highlight areas that are under high potential risk which is disseminated to all the concerned stakeholders. During any big fire event, NEWSP works on near-real data information to predict propagation directions, fire duration, and burnt area extent to help the Civil Defense and First Responder teams in controlling fires and reducing damages.
Other than the fire forecast bulletin established a fire potentiality hazard map was established. The approach was based on GIS modeling of related affecting factors such as topographic base parameters: Land Cover/Land Use, Road Network, Fire Intensity of different vegetation types, and the intensities of these fires collected from the archives of the newspapers and database of the civil defense (1983-2013). In addition to the parameters mentioned above, the fire hazard map is based also on the historical fire (2016-present) data presented at the CNRS by Daily monitoring of fire numbers and locations in various Lebanese regions; Classification of fire types (wooded trees, fruit trees, or grasslands); Carrying out immediate statistics for each district and governorate accordingly.