Study of the Characteristics of Forest Fire Based on Statistics of Forest Fire in Korea

Forest fires occurred in Korea during past 50 years showed a lot of periodic changes according to the environmental changes. Average occurrences and the damaged area by the forest fires numbered 451 times and 3,760ha a year, respectively. The damaged amount of trees and values were largely increased by the expansion of aged trees growing area along with 1st and 2nd Essential Plan for Forest and by the large-scaled forest fires occurred in 90s and 2000s. The damages were sharply increased since 90s. The number of occurrences and damaged areas according to the region and the control division showed some variant results, but the numbers related to Kyungbuk and Kangwon region noticeably large in compared to the other regions. For Kangwon region, the damaged areas were larger in spite of the occurrences because of the large-scaled forest fires in 90s and 2000s. The statistics represents that carelessness by mountain-goers was the top cause of the origin of fire. The number was 30% in 60s and 70s, but was increased to 50% after 80s. The most frequent month of forest fire had been April, however the tendency showed that increasing the frequency in March and November but decreasing in April during 80s. 15% of the total of forest fire had occurred on Sunday, but the forest fire rate sharply increased on Friday and Saturday after the introduction of five-day workweek since 2000s. For hourly base, the forest fire occurred around 14:00~18:00(2~6PM) of 50%, and around noon(11:00~13:00) of 35%. However, the occurrence of forest fire in the afternoon were decresed steadily, and the forest fire which occurred noon, morning, and night were relatively increased. The forest fire rate of night time was represented the highest among them.