Development of a GIS-based spatial decision support system for forest fire management

Fire is an integral part of many ecosystems and plays an important role in maintaining their health and diversity. Forest fires at the same time can have negative socio-economic consequences and can adversely impact public health and safety, property and natural resources. Fire models are developed to assist managers in making informed decisions regarding suppression and evacuation during fire events and facilitating prevention and preparedness planning in times of high fire risk. The objective of this study is to develop a spatial decision support system (SDSS) for forest fire management. The SDSS is based on development and implementation of an integrated Geographic Information System (GIS) - based cellular automata (CA) model of forest fire behaviour, Web-CA modeling tool for fire behaviour, and GIS multicriteria evaluation (MCE) modeling tool for forest fire risk assessment. This study contributes to the field of GIScience, environmental modeling, and forest fire science and management.