FAO and (Regional)Fire Management

Pieter van Lierop

Content

• Roles of FAO in Fire Management– Facilitate a strategy for international

cooperation– Capacity building– Facilitate global access to information

• Relevant elements for regional cooperation– International Agreements template– Global Fire Information System

Role of FAO: international strategy

FAO Ministerial Meeting on Forests + Committee on Forestry (2005) called upon FAO, UNISDR and

other partners to develop: • a strategy to enhance international cooperation

in fire management:– to advance knowledge, – increase access to information and resources– explore new approaches for cooperation

• voluntary guidelines on the prevention, suppression and recovery from forest fire

Role of FAO: international strategyStrategy to Enhance International Cooperation

in Fire Management

Strategy to Enhance International Cooperation in Fire Management

Fire Management

Voluntary guidelines.

Fire Management

Voluntary guidelines.

Fire Management

Actions Alliance

Fire Management

Actions Alliance

Global assessment

2006

Global assessment

2006

Review of international cooperation

2006

Review of international cooperation

2006

Role of FAO: guidelines

For: land use policy makers, planners, managers,private, Ngo’s etc

Approaches: • IFFM• Participatory

Example of use: regional workshops to: develop or strengthen national action plans/strategies

Languages: Eng., Span, Fr., Ru., Ar., Chi., Kor., Bah. Ind.

Integrated Fire Management• All vegetation fires: rangeland and forests,

woodlands, grasslands, bushlands, scrublands, agricultural lands, and wildland-urban interface.

• All related activities: Prevention, monitoring, early warning, prevention, preparedness, suppression and restoration.

• Involvement of all relevant actors: Government agencies at all levels, NGOs but also local communities (Participatory approach)

• Coordination of all agencies during fire suppression through Incident Command System (ICS)

• Agreements between neighboring countries for support in fire suppression

Role of FAO: international strategy/ Action Alliance

Objectives :• review and update the Fire Management

Voluntary Guidelines• encourage stakeholders at all levels to

adopt and use the Voluntary Guidelines; • review experiences from applying the

Voluntary Guidelines; • strengthen international cooperation in fire

management.

Role of FAO:Capacity building

• National projects: training fire brigades, legal frameworks (incl. assignments of responsibilities), policy revisions, etc (FYRM, Syria, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Morocco)

• National action plan development• Regional training workshops on Community

Based Fire Management• Strategy for regional cooperation (Lat. Am. +

Car.)

Role of FAO: global access to data and information

• Publications– Global Assessment– Guidelines– Training Handbook– Forest Fires and the law: guide for

national drafters– Working paper on International

Wildland Fire Management Agreements Template

• Websites:– FAO activities– Fire Management Actions Alliance

• Global Fire Information Management System (GFIMS)

International Agreements template:

1.Parties to the agreement

2.Purpose

3.Definition of Terms

4.Expenses and costs

5. Information and coordination

6.Liabilities, claims and compensations

International Agreements template:

7. Operating plans/operational guidelines

8. Border crossings

9. Link to disaster management plan for receiving country

10.General provisions

11.Standard operational procedures

12. Other provisions

13. Participating countries/ agencies/ organizations signature page

MODIS Fires Monitoring in FAO

John LathamAntonio Martucci

The need for fire information

• Timely information is needed to manage fire effectively and protect property and natural resources

• Much of this fire information can be provided by Earth observation satellites such as NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites

• GFIMS integrates remote sensing and GIS technologies to deliver MODIS hotspot/fire locations.

• Monitoring system hosted at

the Department of Natural Resources (NRD) of FAO.

• GFIMS derives from the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) developed at the University of Maryland on NASA funds.

Global Fire Information Management System

http://www.fao.org/nr/gfims/

GFIMS delivers hotspot/fire information and data through:

Email messages (Global Fire Email Alerts )

Interactive WebGIS - Web Fire Mapper;

Latest hotspot/fire data downloads, NASA WorldWind Plugin, Google™ Earth KML, OGC WMS);

Subsets of MODIS images.

Global Fire Information Management System

Open source products:• Web Fire Mapper: Rapid

display and querying of new and archived MODIS active fire data.

• Fire Email Alert: user subscriptions to receive weekly, daily or near real-time email alerts on detected fires in areas of interest.

Email Alert / Web Fire Mapper

month 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 apr-2010 TOT

Jan - 14 18 34 13 9 217 54 47 112 73 591

Feb - 37 5 15 90 48 213 31 90 324 68 921

Mar - 197 50 61 1377 204 781 130 898 1588 673 5959

Apr - 616 79 814 507 1234 486 673 1466 1903 1182 8960

May - 19 21 443 159 423 75 103 168 138 - 1549

Jun - 3 15 34 7 184 3 45 2 36 - 329

Jul - 1 3 1 0 2 1 0 4 - 12

Aug - 1 2 2 7 1 5 2 3 2 - 25

Sep - 0 8 2 4 8 0 0 2 11 - 35

Oct - 4 12 25 5 4 3 1 2 6 - 62

Nov 9 15 11 70 22 25 17 29 64 25 - 287

Dec 44 21 29 52 31 130 23 68 102 39 - 539

tot 53 928 253 1553 2222 2270 1825 1137 2844 4188 1996 19269

Fire StatisticsNepal

(active fires)• Fire statistics and

maps at national extent are periodically updated based on archived data (Nov. 2000).

• Charts, tables, and GIS data are produced and published through Power Point slides of Excel worksheets.

2006

14.5%

4.6%

9.6%

69.0%

0.0%

1.7%

0.2%

0.5%

0.0%

AGRICULTURE

HERBACEOUS NATURAL VEGETATION (TERRESTRIAL/ ACQUATIC)

SHRUB (TERRESTRIAL/ ACQUATIC)

TREES

URBAN

BARE SOIL

SNOW AND ICE

WATER AND WET AREAS

OTHER

Aggregated Land Cover (2007) from theGLCN-Regional Harmonization Programme: http://www.glcn.org/activities/rhap_en.jsp

Active fires from GFIMS Nepal

Agriculture in valley floor or in not specified landformAgriculture in Sloping LandNatural Trees NeedleleavedNatural Trees Broadleaved and MixedNatural High ShrubsNatural Herbaceous and Low ShrubsNatural Herbaceous and Shrubs in WetlandsBare Areas and Sparse HerbaceousUrban AreaSnow and Ice seasonal and perennialWaterbodies seasonal and perennial

fires by major land cover (%)

Nepal

Himalaya Region

2786

884

1850

13295

0

323

30

92

9

fires #

Main information resources

•FAO GFISM homehttp://www.fao.org/nr/gfims/

•Source data (MODIS Rapid Response)http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/

•Technical specs on MODIS-derived active fires http://maps.geog.umd.edu/products/MODIS_Fire_Users_Guide_2.3.pdf