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Statistical analysis on current status of China forest fire safety
Fire Safety Journal 38 (2003) 257–269
Statistical analysis on current status of China forest fire safety Maohua Zhonga,b,*, Weicheng Fana, Tiemin Liub, Peide Lia a
State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People’s Republic of China b National Center for Industrial Safety Science and Technology, State Economic and Trade Commission, 17 Huixin Xijie, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100029, People’s Republic of China Received 30 October 2001; received in revised form 16 May 2002; accepted 14 October 2002
Abstract In China, forests are a very rare natural resource. Forest fires happen frequently and the loss is very serious each year. In this paper, statistical data on forest fires in China are analyzed in order to reveal new features regarding the forest fire safety situation as the economy of China is growing. The causes of forest fires in China are also discussed. The classifications of forest fire hazard used to improve forest fire prevention and management in China are reviewed, and the current status of the fire researches in China is introduced. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: China forest fire safety; Statistical analysis; Forest fire research
1. Introduction Forest fires can cause the destruction of a large number of trees and the death or displacement of wild animals. Strong combustion not only burns forest and plants on the ground, but also changes forestry structure, forest biology, climate and soil performance. So the forest function of preventing water and soil from being washed away and that of regulating weather both decrease. Meanwhile, the earth’s surface becomes bare, and soil temperature increases. Then soil organisms are destroyed and the former forest area becomes wasteland.
*Corresponding author. State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People’s Republic of China. Tel.: +86-10-64892437; fax: +86-10-64976190. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Zhong). 0379-7112/03/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 7 9 - 7 1 1 2 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 7 9 - 6
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Table 1 Loss due to forest fires in China from 1950 to 1990 Period
Amount (104)
Fire area (104 ha)
Burnt woods (104 m3)
1950–1952 1953–1957 1958–1962 1963–1965 1966–1970 1971–1975 1976–1980 1981–1985 1986–1990 Total
2.54 14.95 10.7 5.02 2.6 6.49 8.26 5.93 6.06 62.55
388 832 555 181 177 516 641 120 157 3567
10,875 23,307 15,540 5068 4996 14,448 17,948 3360 4409 99,951
Forest fire destroys not only forest resources, but also environments. For example, a catastrophic forest fire covering up to 1.5 106 ha occurred in Indonesia in June 1997 and burned for half a year. The forest fire caused famine and epidemic, people’s safety and health were threatened and the environment was polluted. The smoke spread to Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and other countries. The fire caused the most serious fog disaster within the memory of man. China is short of forestry resources [1]. Now the total area of forest and stock volume are only 0.134 billion ha and 11.78 billion m3, respectively, and the forest cover rate is 13.92%. So the mean forest area per person is less than 0.11 ha and the stock volume per person is about 8.4 m3. These are less than the world average values. China is a country which has suffered many forest fires. There were 6.26 105 forest fires from 1950 to 1990, and the mean burnt area each year was 8.2 105 ha [2–6]. Meanwhile, the percentage of damage of forest each year in China is 6.5%. The loss due to forest fires in China from 1950 to 1990 is shown in Table 1. According to the statistical data, both the number of forest firs and the burnt area in the past years have been very large in the following provinces: Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou and Sichuan. Forest fires are not distributed uniformly in these provinces, as most of the fires occurred in about 100 key counties of 16 main forestry regions. Recently, the number of major and serious forest fires have increased rapidly, with 35 major forest fires between 1993 and 1997 [7–11]. The burnt area in the Honghuaerji forest fire in 1994 was 20,750 ha. In 1995, the burnt areas of forest fires in Dayangshu and Qiaoshan (in Huangning of Shan’xi) were 32,261 ha and 1986 ha, respectively. In 1996, the burnt area of four forest fires in Mongolia was 75,000 ha, and in 1997 the burnt area of Caihe is 26,100 ha.
2. Classifications of China forest fire hazards Since 1992, China has surveyed and classified forest fire hazards and it is one of the first countries to investigate national forest fire hazards using uniform quantitative
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Fig. 1. Forest fire hazards classifications for Chinese provinces.
standard (LY1063–92) and analyze the relevant hazard factors based on statistics and modern computations in order to gain a stable classification of results [12]. Compiling and filling out checklists of forest fire hazards are the main tasks to provide important and basic materials for computation, inspection and demonstration of the classifications. The main contents of checklists include: code of the unit, name of unit, Group A (total area, forest area, total stock volumes, tree species, layout area), Group B (forest fire protection period, air temperature per month during the forest fire protection period, air velocity per month during forest fire protection period, relative humidity per month during forest fire protection period), Group C (number of population, number of agriculture population, average income per year per person, total length of roads, landform type), Group D and Group E (number of forest fires, the burnt area, number of deaths and injuries, main fire hazard). All of these checklists are gathered by the General Office of Forest Fire Protection under the Ministry of Forestry. Using the uniform quantitative standard, i.e. China Forest Fire Hazard Classification (LY1063–92), forest fire hazards can be categorized into three classes. Class 1 means the largest forest fire hazard, while class 3 means the least. The Ministry of Forestry of China issued Classifications of China Forest Fire Hazards in 1996. Classifications of forest fire hazards for Chinese provinces (not including Taiwan Province, Chongqing City and Tibet Municipality) are shown in Fig. 1. The number of forest fire hazards of the three classes is shown in Fig. 2.
3. The characteristics of China forest fires 3.1. Forest fires destroy forest resources and harm life and property Fire is the archenemy of the forest. Fire burns woods, reduces forest density, and even destroys forest structure. From the investigations in Yichuanlin forestry region
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Class 2 26%
Class 1 21%
Class 3 53%
Fig. 2. The number of forest fire hazards in classifications 1, 2 and 3.
in Heilongjiang Province, there are coniferous forest (red Canadian pine and larch), broad-leaved forest or mixed broadleaf-conifer forest in the burnt area. The death rate of middle aged and young forest is about 40% while that of mature and overmature forest is 50–60% following forest fires. Meanwhile, almost all of the manmade forests under 15 year old have died. According to other investigations of the catastrophic forest fire of the Great Xing’an Mountains in 1987, the burnt area, hazarded forest and burnt stock volumes are 1.33, 0.89 and 39.6 million m3, respectively. The loss due to the forest fire was up to 3 billion RMB Yuan. Deaths and injuries due to forest fires from 1991 to 1999 in China are shown in Fig. 3 [13–15]. 3.2. It is very difficult to control forest fires in China because of the natural conditions In terms of statistical data, the number of forest fires in China and the burnt area fluctuated largely each year [16], as indicated in Figs. 4 and 5. The burnt areas were over 1 million ha in the following years: 1951, 1955, 1956, 1961, 1962, 1972, 1977, 1987 and 1996. It is found that the number of forest fires in other years is related to atmosphere conditions. Forest fires easily ensue during drought years, whilst periods of heavy rainfall, low temperature and high humidity, means there are only a few forest fires. Except for weather conditions, the fluctuation of the number of China forest fires is related to combustible accumulation. 3.3. Most of forest fires happened in few excessive-fire regions According to statistics, most of the forest fires happened and the resulting burnt area was in Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Yunnan, Guangxi and Sichuan in the past years. The number of forest fires each year in these provinces accounts for 40% of the fire cases in China while the burnt area in these provinces each year is 75% of the burnt area in China. Meanwhile, forest fires happen most frequently in some key fire regions such as Hulunbeier and Dayangshu of Great Xing’an Mountains in
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Fig. 3. Deaths and injuries due to forest fires from 1991 to 1999.
Fig. 4. Forest fires in China from 1992 to 1999.
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Fig. 5. China burnt forest area from 1992 to 1999.
Inner Mongolia, Hanjiayuanzi of Great Xing’an Mountains, Dapingtai of Small Xing’an Mountains and Heihe in Heilongjiang, Anning, Yuxi, Dali and Simao in Yunnan, Ganzi, Aba, Xichuang and Panzhihua in Sichuan. Those results are related to broad forest area, large climate change, long-lasting drought, frequent gales, inconvenient traffic, economy underdevelopment and so on. So these regions described above are the key fire prevention areas and go by the name of excessive-fire regions. 3.4. The number of forest fires in Southern areas is large while the burnt area in Northeast and Inner Mongolia is very large The topography is flat and woodlands are joined to grassland in Northeast and Inner Mongolia. Great winds often occur in these remote places due to Siberian seasonal winds in spring and autumn, and traffic access is poor. So fire fighters are very difficult to arrive at the fire field in time, and fire spreads fast depending on the wind. These result in a large area of hazarded forest. In Northeast and Inner Mongolia hazarded forest area per year represents 50% of China hazarded forest area per year. On the contrary, the number of forest fires is about 4% of the total number in China. In Southern areas, forests and farms are joined and forest areas are dispersed. In particular, there is a high population, a great many villages and many field fire sources, so the number of fires is very large and represents 52% of the total number of forest fires in China while hazarded forest area is only about 16%. In the Southwest, the number of fires is 37% of the total number of forest fires in China
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and hazarded forest area is 24% of the total hazarded area, respectively. In Northwest, these percentages are 6% and 9%, respectively. In some other provinces with few forests, both are about 1%. Fig. 6 shows the number of forest fires in China in 1999 (not including Taiwan Province). 3.5. Great differences among forest fire risk periods For the impact of atmospheric conditions and climate, different natural conditions such as drought and windiness, cloud and rain, low temperature and snow are significant in forest areas in the Northeast, Inner Mongolia, Southwest, South and Northwest of China in various seasons. Sequentially, different fire risk periods (FRP) or preventive fire periods appears in a year. *
*
*
In Northeast and Inner Mongolia, forest fires often happen in spring and autumn. FRP in spring is from March to June and there are 120 days in total. The most dangerous month is May when most fires happen during this month. Moreover, FRP in autumn lasts about 100 days, from the middle 10 days of September to November. Most of the fires happen in October. In the South and Southwest, there is only one FRP in winter and spring. The FRP lasts about 150 days in total from the middle 10 days of November to the end of April of the next year. In general, forest fires happen mostly from February to April. In the Northwest (Xinjiang), forest fires occur mostly between summer and autumn especially in August and September, The FRP lasts about 100 days from the end of July to the end of September.
Fig. 6. The cases of China forest fires in 1999.
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The timing of FRPs often varies. Sometimes they happen earlier than expected, sometimes later. 3.6. Analysis of the causes of forest fires in China Forest fires in China are due to many causes such as: * * * * *
climate and weather variation, large number of hypo-forest and young forest, human activities, low level of forest fire prevention measures, shortage of basic equipment for fire fighting.
According to the Chinese Agriculture Yearbook from 1992 to 1999 [17–24], there is no obvious relation between forest fires and the levels of economic development and agriculture production (Fig. 3–5, 7 and 8). Annual forest fire data reported by the Ministry of Forestry are listed in Table 2. The annual statistical data indicate that most of the forest fires are caused by fire utilization. From statistical data in 1999, we know that most forest fires are caused by non-productive fire utilizations such as smoking (accounting for 40.6%), with productive fire utilizations such as field fires for land reclamation (accounting for 30.9%), lightning and other natural disaster (0.38%), deliberate fires (1.52%) and others (21.18%) (Fig. 9). We can draw the conclusion that the main causes of forest fires in China are related to human activities, while natural causes such as lightning make up a relatively small portion of the total.
Fig. 7. China GNP per person each year from 1992 to 1999.
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Fig. 8. Net income per farmer each year in China from 1992 to 1999.
Table 2 Causes of China forest fires from 1992 to 1999 Year
Non-production Production fire fire utilization utilization
Lightning and other natural disaster
Deliberate fires
Others
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
0.4222 0.3108 0.2942 0.3115 0.4064 0.3947 0.3165 0.3095
0.0062 0.0067 0.0139 0.0098 0.0095 0.0134 0.0141 0.0152
0.0209 0.0026 0.0042 0.0069 0.0032 0.0065 0.0106 0.0038
0.1006 0.1975 0.1909 0.2107 0.1541 0.1826 0.1834 0.2117
0.4501 0.4824 0.4968 0.4701 0.4268 0.4028 0.4754 0.4598
4. The organization framework of China forest fire prevention In past years, China government has taken a great deal of measures to improve its ability for forest fire prevention and protection. New China has witnessed a series of regulations and rules such as ‘Fire Protection Regulations of the People’s Republic of China’ issued and executed for forest fire protections. On March 15, 1988, the ‘Forest Fire Protection Rules’ came into effect, in which the forest fire safety responsibilities of the governments of different levels were clearly defined. In addition, this law also defined in detail the forest fire protection responsibilities of the different government units, enterprises, government-sponsored institutions, and the citizens [25].
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thunderbolt and other natural diaster 0.38% 21.2% others
non-production fire utilization 46%
1.52% fire on purpose
30.9% production fire utilization Fig. 9. Causes of China forest fires in 1999.
The Ministry of Forestry is responsible for the prevention and suppression of fires in forestry and forestland. The forest police troop (professional forest fire brigade) was established in 1988. The troop of ten thousands has become the main force to attack the forest fires in China. Headquarters of forest fire prevention were set up from central government to local government and divided into five management levels: state, province, district, county and countryside. All of these headquarters lead groups of forest fire prevention. Except for countryside level, other headquarters of forest fire prevention have established general offices for forest fire prevention with full-time workers.
5. Forest fire safety research in China National Science Foundation of China (NSFC), as one of the major sources of support for basic forest fire safety research provided by the Chinese government, is an important link in the chain of China forest fire prevention strategy to promote basic research. NSFC’s budget has been increasing annually. During the past 15 years NSFC has supported many projects of forest fire prevention and control, thus playing a significant role in promoting the progress and enhancing the overall quality of basic forest fire safety research in China. NSFC is one of the major forces to support scientific and technological innovation of forest fire safety. The State Key Laboratory of Fire Science (SKLFS) is a representative institution of basic forest fire research on a national level in China. The foundation of this laboratory marks the beginning of a period when fire research is carried out on a large scale in various complicated areas with many different departments working together for the first time in China. In the past few years, this laboratory worked in the national or international forefront of forest fire science and technology. Effective and fruitful researches have been carried out in the areas such as fire physics and fire chemistry by way of both experiment and computer simulation [26–29].
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During the past decade, different ministries of the Chinese government have also established forest fire research institutions devoted to applied research and development of new technologies. The Fire Service Bureau under the Ministry of Public Security is a leading body of professional forest fire brigades as well as four fire research institutes (FRI) located in Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Dujianyuan of Sichuan province, respectively. Besides, the National Center for Industrial Safety Science and Technology under the State Economic and Trade Commission also engages itself in forest fire researches. The Ministry of Forestry and some universities also have specialized research institutes in forest fire safety [30,31].
6. Outlooks As China national land boundaries are very long, a few forest fires come from neighboring countries each year. International cooperation among neighboring countries should be enhanced so as to jointly deal with forest fires more efficiently. There is no doubt that much progress has been achieved in forest fire prevention and protection in China since the foundation of the new China. However, with the fast growing economy in China, the present situation of forest fire protection is becoming severe. The main cause comes from the fact that forest fire protection technical work has failed to keep up with the social development and that some regulations and management systems for forest fire protection fall behind the present social development. Therefore, more effective regulations and rules should be set up soon and a strategy should be made in China to carry out ahead-of-time forest fire research work so as to cope with the new challenges of forest fire hazards in the future.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank National Natural Science Foundation of China for supporting this research under contract 50106017 and China National Key Basic Research Special Funds (No. 2001CB409600). The support and ideas provided by Prof. Dougal Drysdale, Dr. N.A. Liu, Dr. W.G. Song and Wei Xing are gratefully acknowledged.
References [1] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1949–1986. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1987. [2] Qian Jihu, Pan Guanxi. Calculate correctly forest fire loss during 40 years. Forest Fire Prevention 1994;1:3. [3] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1987. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1988.
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[4] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1988. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1989. [5] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1989. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1990. [6] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1990. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1991. [7] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1993. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1994. [8] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1994. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1995. [9] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China, China Forestry Yearbook 1995, Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1996. [10] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1996. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1997. [11] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1997. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1998. [12] Wang Dong. Forest Fire Hazard Survey and Zoning in China. Beijing: China Forest Industry Press, 2000. [13] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1991. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1992. [14] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1998. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1999. [15] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1999/2000. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 2001. [16] The Ministry of Forestry of P.R.China. China Forestry Yearbook 1992. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1993. [17] The Compiling Committee of China Agriculture Yearbook. China Agriculture Yearbook 1993. Beijing: China Forestry Press, 1993. [18] The Compiling Committee of China Agriculture Yearbook. China Agriculture Yearbook 1994. Beijing: China Agriculture Press, 1994. [19] The Compiling Committee of China Agriculture Yearbook. China Agriculture Yearbook 1995. Beijing: China Agriculture Press, 1995. [20] The Compiling Committee of China Agriculture Yearbook. China Agriculture Yearbook 1996. Beijing: China Agriculture Press, 1996. [21] The Compiling Committee of China Agriculture Yearbook. China Agriculture Yearbook 1997. Beijing: China Agriculture Press, 1997. [22] The Compiling Committee of China Agriculture Yearbook. China Agriculture Yearbook 1998. Beijing: China Agriculture Press, 1998. [23] The Compiling Committee of China Agriculture Yearbook. China Agriculture Yearbook 1999. Beijing: China Agriculture Press, 1999. [24] The Compiling Committee of China Agriculture Yearbook. China Agriculture Yearbook 2000. Beijing: China Agriculture Press, 2000. [25] Fan Weicheng. Current status of fire safety and scope of fire safety measure and research in China. Proceedings of the Fourth Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology, Tokyo, Japan, May 24–26, 2000. p. 67–77. [26] Zhong Maohua, Fan Weicheng, Wang Qinan. Experimental study in catastrophe characteristics of forest fire spread. Prog Natural Sci 2000;10(6): 465–9. [27] Fan Weicheng, Zhong Maohua. Review on modelling of fire physics and risk assessment. Proceeding of the Fourth Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology, Tokyo, Japan, May 24–26, 2000. p. 165–78. [28] Fan Weicheng, Chen Li, Hua Jinsong, Jiang Xi, Yuan Hongyong. Recent progress in fire research at SKLFS. Proceedings of International Seminar on Fire Safety Frontier, Hefei, October 22–26, 1995. p. 15–29.
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[29] Haihui Wang, Weicheng Fan. Progress and problems of fire protection in China. Fire Safety J 1997;28(3):191–205. [30] Fan Weicheng, Zhong Maohua. Present and future developments of fire science in P.R. China. China Safety Sci J 2000;10(1):11–6. [31] Fan WC, Wang QA. Simplified textbook of fire science. Hefei, China: Press of USTC, 1995 [in Chinese].
Statistical analysis on current status of China forest fire safety Maohua Zhonga,b,*, Weicheng Fana, Tiemin Liub, Peide Lia a
State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People’s Republic of China b National Center for Industrial Safety Science and Technology, State Economic and Trade Commission, 17 Huixin Xijie, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100029, People’s Republic of China Received 30 October 2001; received in revised form 16 May 2002; accepted 14 October 2002
Abstract In China, forests are a very rare natural resource. Forest fires happen frequently and the loss is very serious each year. In this paper, statistical data on forest fires in China are analyzed in order to reveal new features regarding the forest fire safety situation as the economy of China is growing. The causes of forest fires in China are also discussed. The classifications of forest fire hazard used to improve forest fire prevention and management in China are reviewed, and the current status of the fire researches in China is introduced. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: China forest fire safety; Statistical analysis; Forest fire research
1. Introduction Forest fires can cause the destruction of a large number of trees and the death or displacement of wild animals. Strong combustion not only burns forest and plants on the ground, but also changes forestry structure, forest biology, climate and soil performance. So the forest function of preventing water and soil from being washed away and that of regulating weather both decrease. Meanwhile, the earth’s surface becomes bare, and soil temperature increases. Then soil organisms are destroyed and the former forest area becomes wasteland.
*Corresponding author. State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People’s Republic of China. Tel.: +86-10-64892437; fax: +86-10-64976190. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Zhong). 0379-7112/03/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 7 9 - 7 1 1 2 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 7 9 - 6
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Table 1 Loss due to forest fires in China from 1950 to 1990 Period
Amount (104)
Fire area (104 ha)
Burnt woods (104 m3)
1950–1952 1953–1957 1958–1962 1963–1965 1966–1970 1971–1975 1976–1980 1981–1985 1986–1990 Total
2.54 14.95 10.7 5.02 2.6 6.49 8.26 5.93 6.06 62.55
388 832 555 181 177 516 641 120 157 3567
10,875 23,307 15,540 5068 4996 14,448 17,948 3360 4409 99,951
Forest fire destroys not only forest resources, but also environments. For example, a catastrophic forest fire covering up to 1.5 106 ha occurred in Indonesia in June 1997 and burned for half a year. The forest fire caused famine and epidemic, people’s safety and health were threatened and the environment was polluted. The smoke spread to Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and other countries. The fire caused the most serious fog disaster within the memory of man. China is short of forestry resources [1]. Now the total area of forest and stock volume are only 0.134 billion ha and 11.78 billion m3, respectively, and the forest cover rate is 13.92%. So the mean forest area per person is less than 0.11 ha and the stock volume per person is about 8.4 m3. These are less than the world average values. China is a country which has suffered many forest fires. There were 6.26 105 forest fires from 1950 to 1990, and the mean burnt area each year was 8.2 105 ha [2–6]. Meanwhile, the percentage of damage of forest each year in China is 6.5%. The loss due to forest fires in China from 1950 to 1990 is shown in Table 1. According to the statistical data, both the number of forest firs and the burnt area in the past years have been very large in the following provinces: Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou and Sichuan. Forest fires are not distributed uniformly in these provinces, as most of the fires occurred in about 100 key counties of 16 main forestry regions. Recently, the number of major and serious forest fires have increased rapidly, with 35 major forest fires between 1993 and 1997 [7–11]. The burnt area in the Honghuaerji forest fire in 1994 was 20,750 ha. In 1995, the burnt areas of forest fires in Dayangshu and Qiaoshan (in Huangning of Shan’xi) were 32,261 ha and 1986 ha, respectively. In 1996, the burnt area of four forest fires in Mongolia was 75,000 ha, and in 1997 the burnt area of Caihe is 26,100 ha.
2. Classifications of China forest fire hazards Since 1992, China has surveyed and classified forest fire hazards and it is one of the first countries to investigate national forest fire hazards using uniform quantitative
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Fig. 1. Forest fire hazards classifications for Chinese provinces.
standard (LY1063–92) and analyze the relevant hazard factors based on statistics and modern computations in order to gain a stable classification of results [12]. Compiling and filling out checklists of forest fire hazards are the main tasks to provide important and basic materials for computation, inspection and demonstration of the classifications. The main contents of checklists include: code of the unit, name of unit, Group A (total area, forest area, total stock volumes, tree species, layout area), Group B (forest fire protection period, air temperature per month during the forest fire protection period, air velocity per month during forest fire protection period, relative humidity per month during forest fire protection period), Group C (number of population, number of agriculture population, average income per year per person, total length of roads, landform type), Group D and Group E (number of forest fires, the burnt area, number of deaths and injuries, main fire hazard). All of these checklists are gathered by the General Office of Forest Fire Protection under the Ministry of Forestry. Using the uniform quantitative standard, i.e. China Forest Fire Hazard Classification (LY1063–92), forest fire hazards can be categorized into three classes. Class 1 means the largest forest fire hazard, while class 3 means the least. The Ministry of Forestry of China issued Classifications of China Forest Fire Hazards in 1996. Classifications of forest fire hazards for Chinese provinces (not including Taiwan Province, Chongqing City and Tibet Municipality) are shown in Fig. 1. The number of forest fire hazards of the three classes is shown in Fig. 2.
3. The characteristics of China forest fires 3.1. Forest fires destroy forest resources and harm life and property Fire is the archenemy of the forest. Fire burns woods, reduces forest density, and even destroys forest structure. From the investigations in Yichuanlin forestry region
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Class 2 26%
Class 1 21%
Class 3 53%
Fig. 2. The number of forest fire hazards in classifications 1, 2 and 3.
in Heilongjiang Province, there are coniferous forest (red Canadian pine and larch), broad-leaved forest or mixed broadleaf-conifer forest in the burnt area. The death rate of middle aged and young forest is about 40% while that of mature and overmature forest is 50–60% following forest fires. Meanwhile, almost all of the manmade forests under 15 year old have died. According to other investigations of the catastrophic forest fire of the Great Xing’an Mountains in 1987, the burnt area, hazarded forest and burnt stock volumes are 1.33, 0.89 and 39.6 million m3, respectively. The loss due to the forest fire was up to 3 billion RMB Yuan. Deaths and injuries due to forest fires from 1991 to 1999 in China are shown in Fig. 3 [13–15]. 3.2. It is very difficult to control forest fires in China because of the natural conditions In terms of statistical data, the number of forest fires in China and the burnt area fluctuated largely each year [16], as indicated in Figs. 4 and 5. The burnt areas were over 1 million ha in the following years: 1951, 1955, 1956, 1961, 1962, 1972, 1977, 1987 and 1996. It is found that the number of forest fires in other years is related to atmosphere conditions. Forest fires easily ensue during drought years, whilst periods of heavy rainfall, low temperature and high humidity, means there are only a few forest fires. Except for weather conditions, the fluctuation of the number of China forest fires is related to combustible accumulation. 3.3. Most of forest fires happened in few excessive-fire regions According to statistics, most of the forest fires happened and the resulting burnt area was in Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Yunnan, Guangxi and Sichuan in the past years. The number of forest fires each year in these provinces accounts for 40% of the fire cases in China while the burnt area in these provinces each year is 75% of the burnt area in China. Meanwhile, forest fires happen most frequently in some key fire regions such as Hulunbeier and Dayangshu of Great Xing’an Mountains in
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Fig. 3. Deaths and injuries due to forest fires from 1991 to 1999.
Fig. 4. Forest fires in China from 1992 to 1999.
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Fig. 5. China burnt forest area from 1992 to 1999.
Inner Mongolia, Hanjiayuanzi of Great Xing’an Mountains, Dapingtai of Small Xing’an Mountains and Heihe in Heilongjiang, Anning, Yuxi, Dali and Simao in Yunnan, Ganzi, Aba, Xichuang and Panzhihua in Sichuan. Those results are related to broad forest area, large climate change, long-lasting drought, frequent gales, inconvenient traffic, economy underdevelopment and so on. So these regions described above are the key fire prevention areas and go by the name of excessive-fire regions. 3.4. The number of forest fires in Southern areas is large while the burnt area in Northeast and Inner Mongolia is very large The topography is flat and woodlands are joined to grassland in Northeast and Inner Mongolia. Great winds often occur in these remote places due to Siberian seasonal winds in spring and autumn, and traffic access is poor. So fire fighters are very difficult to arrive at the fire field in time, and fire spreads fast depending on the wind. These result in a large area of hazarded forest. In Northeast and Inner Mongolia hazarded forest area per year represents 50% of China hazarded forest area per year. On the contrary, the number of forest fires is about 4% of the total number in China. In Southern areas, forests and farms are joined and forest areas are dispersed. In particular, there is a high population, a great many villages and many field fire sources, so the number of fires is very large and represents 52% of the total number of forest fires in China while hazarded forest area is only about 16%. In the Southwest, the number of fires is 37% of the total number of forest fires in China
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and hazarded forest area is 24% of the total hazarded area, respectively. In Northwest, these percentages are 6% and 9%, respectively. In some other provinces with few forests, both are about 1%. Fig. 6 shows the number of forest fires in China in 1999 (not including Taiwan Province). 3.5. Great differences among forest fire risk periods For the impact of atmospheric conditions and climate, different natural conditions such as drought and windiness, cloud and rain, low temperature and snow are significant in forest areas in the Northeast, Inner Mongolia, Southwest, South and Northwest of China in various seasons. Sequentially, different fire risk periods (FRP) or preventive fire periods appears in a year. *
*
*
In Northeast and Inner Mongolia, forest fires often happen in spring and autumn. FRP in spring is from March to June and there are 120 days in total. The most dangerous month is May when most fires happen during this month. Moreover, FRP in autumn lasts about 100 days, from the middle 10 days of September to November. Most of the fires happen in October. In the South and Southwest, there is only one FRP in winter and spring. The FRP lasts about 150 days in total from the middle 10 days of November to the end of April of the next year. In general, forest fires happen mostly from February to April. In the Northwest (Xinjiang), forest fires occur mostly between summer and autumn especially in August and September, The FRP lasts about 100 days from the end of July to the end of September.
Fig. 6. The cases of China forest fires in 1999.
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The timing of FRPs often varies. Sometimes they happen earlier than expected, sometimes later. 3.6. Analysis of the causes of forest fires in China Forest fires in China are due to many causes such as: * * * * *
climate and weather variation, large number of hypo-forest and young forest, human activities, low level of forest fire prevention measures, shortage of basic equipment for fire fighting.
According to the Chinese Agriculture Yearbook from 1992 to 1999 [17–24], there is no obvious relation between forest fires and the levels of economic development and agriculture production (Fig. 3–5, 7 and 8). Annual forest fire data reported by the Ministry of Forestry are listed in Table 2. The annual statistical data indicate that most of the forest fires are caused by fire utilization. From statistical data in 1999, we know that most forest fires are caused by non-productive fire utilizations such as smoking (accounting for 40.6%), with productive fire utilizations such as field fires for land reclamation (accounting for 30.9%), lightning and other natural disaster (0.38%), deliberate fires (1.52%) and others (21.18%) (Fig. 9). We can draw the conclusion that the main causes of forest fires in China are related to human activities, while natural causes such as lightning make up a relatively small portion of the total.
Fig. 7. China GNP per person each year from 1992 to 1999.
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Fig. 8. Net income per farmer each year in China from 1992 to 1999.
Table 2 Causes of China forest fires from 1992 to 1999 Year
Non-production Production fire fire utilization utilization
Lightning and other natural disaster
Deliberate fires
Others
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
0.4222 0.3108 0.2942 0.3115 0.4064 0.3947 0.3165 0.3095
0.0062 0.0067 0.0139 0.0098 0.0095 0.0134 0.0141 0.0152
0.0209 0.0026 0.0042 0.0069 0.0032 0.0065 0.0106 0.0038
0.1006 0.1975 0.1909 0.2107 0.1541 0.1826 0.1834 0.2117
0.4501 0.4824 0.4968 0.4701 0.4268 0.4028 0.4754 0.4598
4. The organization framework of China forest fire prevention In past years, China government has taken a great deal of measures to improve its ability for forest fire prevention and protection. New China has witnessed a series of regulations and rules such as ‘Fire Protection Regulations of the People’s Republic of China’ issued and executed for forest fire protections. On March 15, 1988, the ‘Forest Fire Protection Rules’ came into effect, in which the forest fire safety responsibilities of the governments of different levels were clearly defined. In addition, this law also defined in detail the forest fire protection responsibilities of the different government units, enterprises, government-sponsored institutions, and the citizens [25].
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thunderbolt and other natural diaster 0.38% 21.2% others
non-production fire utilization 46%
1.52% fire on purpose
30.9% production fire utilization Fig. 9. Causes of China forest fires in 1999.
The Ministry of Forestry is responsible for the prevention and suppression of fires in forestry and forestland. The forest police troop (professional forest fire brigade) was established in 1988. The troop of ten thousands has become the main force to attack the forest fires in China. Headquarters of forest fire prevention were set up from central government to local government and divided into five management levels: state, province, district, county and countryside. All of these headquarters lead groups of forest fire prevention. Except for countryside level, other headquarters of forest fire prevention have established general offices for forest fire prevention with full-time workers.
5. Forest fire safety research in China National Science Foundation of China (NSFC), as one of the major sources of support for basic forest fire safety research provided by the Chinese government, is an important link in the chain of China forest fire prevention strategy to promote basic research. NSFC’s budget has been increasing annually. During the past 15 years NSFC has supported many projects of forest fire prevention and control, thus playing a significant role in promoting the progress and enhancing the overall quality of basic forest fire safety research in China. NSFC is one of the major forces to support scientific and technological innovation of forest fire safety. The State Key Laboratory of Fire Science (SKLFS) is a representative institution of basic forest fire research on a national level in China. The foundation of this laboratory marks the beginning of a period when fire research is carried out on a large scale in various complicated areas with many different departments working together for the first time in China. In the past few years, this laboratory worked in the national or international forefront of forest fire science and technology. Effective and fruitful researches have been carried out in the areas such as fire physics and fire chemistry by way of both experiment and computer simulation [26–29].
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During the past decade, different ministries of the Chinese government have also established forest fire research institutions devoted to applied research and development of new technologies. The Fire Service Bureau under the Ministry of Public Security is a leading body of professional forest fire brigades as well as four fire research institutes (FRI) located in Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Dujianyuan of Sichuan province, respectively. Besides, the National Center for Industrial Safety Science and Technology under the State Economic and Trade Commission also engages itself in forest fire researches. The Ministry of Forestry and some universities also have specialized research institutes in forest fire safety [30,31].
6. Outlooks As China national land boundaries are very long, a few forest fires come from neighboring countries each year. International cooperation among neighboring countries should be enhanced so as to jointly deal with forest fires more efficiently. There is no doubt that much progress has been achieved in forest fire prevention and protection in China since the foundation of the new China. However, with the fast growing economy in China, the present situation of forest fire protection is becoming severe. The main cause comes from the fact that forest fire protection technical work has failed to keep up with the social development and that some regulations and management systems for forest fire protection fall behind the present social development. Therefore, more effective regulations and rules should be set up soon and a strategy should be made in China to carry out ahead-of-time forest fire research work so as to cope with the new challenges of forest fire hazards in the future.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank National Natural Science Foundation of China for supporting this research under contract 50106017 and China National Key Basic Research Special Funds (No. 2001CB409600). The support and ideas provided by Prof. Dougal Drysdale, Dr. N.A. Liu, Dr. W.G. Song and Wei Xing are gratefully acknowledged.
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