The assessment of fire history in plantations of Mpumalanga North

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Fire is a threat to all forest plantations. As a result, growers are forced to take activemeasures to reduce the incidence and extent of fires in their plantations.This thesis is an attempt to collate 846 fire records for eight Komatiland Forests(KLF) plantations in Mpumalanga North for the period 1950 to 1999. Up to now,these reports and the information therein, were not utilised by KLF for planning or forevaluating fire management practices. The only other studies in South Africa, usingsimilar data, were conducted by LeRoux (1988) and Kromhout (1990).A brief background of the forestry industry in South Africa, and in particularMpumalanga is presented. The main text of the report covers a presentation on firecauses, extent of damage (both in area and in Rand value) and various aspectsrelated to time of ignition and response times. A detailed analysis was done toidentify possible relationships between the variables related to compartment, climateand different fire suppression activities.A cause and frequency prediction model was developed that will assist fi re managersin identifying and determining probabilities of fires per cause. Statistical guidelinesregarding the planning of fire management around fires caused by honey hunters,lightning, work-related factors, and the activities of people (public, own labour,contractors) are presented.Conclusions were drawn from the results of the analyses of the fire data, whichcovered a period of 47 years. Recommendations regarding guidelines for strategicfi re management for the Mpumalanga North plantations were made. The mainconclusions are:• Statistics on previous fires are very useful in fire management planningas it supplies valuable information on fire causes, time of ignition , pastperformance related to response times, fire fighting times and damagedcaused.••••The average area lost due to fires in the study area is 209.9 ha or0.43% of the plantation area per annum.People-related fires (arson, smokers, picnickers, children andneighbours) caused most of the wild fires (48%), followed by lightning(22%).Some plantations performed poorly, with the occurrence of up todouble the number of fires per 1 000 ha of plantation compared to otherplantations in the same geographic area.There are definite patterns in the frequency of fires per cause withmonth of the year. These patterns are valuable for the development ofstrategies to manage fires caused by honey hunters, lightning fires andwork-related fires.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University