Study on the Relationship between Local Topography and Damage caused by Forest Fires System

- The Forest Fire in Takehara-city, 1994 -

Abstract

On August 11, 1994, a forest fire occurred in Takehara-city, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The fire was repressed once, but it rekindled because of strong winds from a typhoon and a large drought. 378ha were burnt before it was extinguished, and the damage amounted to about 500 million yen, becoming the largest in Japan in terms of the amount of damage.
The authors here present a damaged district forecast method for forest fires by which the influence of limited geographical features is considered ahead, based on the example of a forest fire which occurred in Manba-city, Gunma Prefecture, Japan, in April, 1993. This paper analyzed the forest fire that occurred in Takehara-city and, new findings were added to the technique presented before, a new technique is developed, and improvement of accuracy is aimed at.
The analytical items newly adopted in this paper are as follows:
(1) The wind direction and the velocity of the wind are set in detail, and analysis which corresponds to the change in the wind direction and the velocity of the wind is attempted.
(2) A device and improvements are added to the extraction method of the geographical features factor.
(3) More detailed numeric geographical features data are used and analyzed.
(4) Information on the woods aspect is added to the analysis.
The effectiveness of this technique additionally confirmed the assertion formerly announced as a result of these changes.