ABSTRACT
Fires are a predominant cause of forest degradation and significantly affect resources, habitats, and biodiversity. The previous fire occurrence data show that the present study area Parambikulam Tiger Reserve, a part of Southern Western Ghats, is also prone to fires, where 48 fire incidences were recorded during the last decade. This present study aims to demarcate the fire risk zones in Parambikulam Tiger Reserve using geospatial techniques and the Fire Risk Index method. Factors such as land cover type, Normalized difference vegetation index, Land surface temperature, temperature, rainfall, wind speed, slope, aspect, drainage, elevation, distance from the road, distance from the settlement, and previous fire incidence points were selected for the mapping process. The final map was categorized into five zones: very low, low, moderate, high, and very high. The map is validated with previous fire incidence points and confirms that 66.66% of fire incidences fall in high and very high-risk zones, proving the methodology’s reliability. The present methodology can be applied to similar areas, especially in Western Ghats regions. The generated maps will assist forest department officials in preventing or minimizing fire activities and taking appropriate measures when a fire occurs, resulting in improved forest fire management.
