Forest Fire Vulnerability Assessment in the Aberdare Forest Reserve

Abstract

Forests, being an important resource in our environment, require intentional conservation. There is an increasing need to protect forests even as the battle for climate change continues. Threats to the existence of these forests should be addressed so as to maintain and increase forest cover globally. Despite the importance of fires in balancing the ecosystem, uncontrolled occurrences lead to devastating losses. Forest fires occur as a result of either natural or human activity. In the recent past, forest fires have caused a menace to the ecosystem by disrupting the very nature of their existence. They have led to the loss of forest cover and biodiversity upset in the Aberdare region, the recent fire outbreak being at the Eburu region on 5th February 2022. This came a few days after the Kenya Meteorological Department issued a warning on the possibility of forest fire outbreaks. This research project will address a challenge in the mitigation phase of forests’ disaster management. Various fire models were analyzed and one was created as a best fit to Kenyan forests. The model was created in a GIS environment to identify, classify and map fire risk regions. Inputs for this model was based on three main criteria; climatic, topographic and anthropogenic factors. A fire risk assessment was done on the Aberdare Forest Reserve using GIS based Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and Multi Criteria Decision Making Analysis (MCDA) to come up with a Forest Fire Risk Map. MODIS data obtained aboard Terra and Aqua satellites was used as a measure of evaluation of the fire risk model covering the Aberdare Forest reserve. A fire risk map was produced, depicting severity zones of the areas that are prone to fire, ranging from very low to very high. 65.14 % of the area in the Aberdare Forest Reserve was found out to lie in the high-risk region, 33.21 % in the moderate risk region while 1.95 % was in the low-risk region. The deliverables of this research project are important in forming a basis for the development of forest fire management plans specific to the Aberdare region and as an important input to efforts channeled in monitoring these areas by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and Kenya Forest Service (KFS).