Identification of forest fire hazard area in Kubu Raya Regency, West Kalimantan Province

Abstract

Forest and land fires are events caused by both natural and human processes. Kubu Raya Regency, West Kalimantan is one of the districts that often experience forest and land fires. Generally, the forest and land fires are caused by human activities increase population density and land clearing through burning land. Forest and land fires in Kubu Raya Regency have caused environmental and economic damage, therefore it is necessary to identify the hazard areas for an effective management system to prevent more fires. This research aims to identify forest and land fire hazard areas and determine its relationship with concession areas in Kubu Raya Regency. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is used to obtain the weight of each variable. There are three criteria that affect forest and land fire hazard area: topography, meteorology, and human activities, which consist of eight variables: altitude, slope, aspect, temperature, rainfall, wind speed, population density, and distance from the settlements. Based on the AHP calculation, the final weight of the topographic criteria is 0.11; meteorology 0.28; and human activity 0.62. This district's forest and land fire hazard areas are divided into three classes: low, medium, and high. The weighted overlay result shows that Kubu Raya Regency is dominated by moderate forest and land fires areas, covering an area of 433.654,34 Ha or 50.7% of the total area. The second-largest forest and land fire hazard area are at a high level with an area of 244.282,41 Ha or 28.6% of the total area. The low forest and land fire hazard area has 177.624,25 Ha or 28.6% of the total area. The results fires hazards area were validated by hotspot data using the AUC/ROC curve and obtained an area under the ROC curve value of 0.76, which indicates moderate score of relationship.