Analysis Forest Fire Cause and Different Land Use Within Buffer Zones in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand

Abstract

The most important causes of forest fire are due to human’s activities both intentionally and unknowingly. These are the human behaviors in land use at the edge to forest or buffer area. Due to this reason, land use within the buffer area, which caused forest fire in Kanchanaburi, is being studied using Geo-informatics in order to explore and analyze the way of utilizing the buffer area, which caused forest fire. Satellite imagery is used to classify the land use. By creating buffer at the edge of forest can classify the ways of land use, which possibly cause forest fire. Moreover, the study of previous statistics and caused of forest fire is to find which land use are possible to cause forest fire. From the study, the highest cause forest fire is searching of forest products and the lowest cause forest fire is hunting. Over 82% of the forest fire caused by searching of forest product and unknown caused. There is a likelihood of forest fire, which caused by forest product searching to be increased during 2015–2017. Moreover, the study of the way of utilizing land around buffer area within 1 km from the edge of forest found that more than 60% of forest fire found in the area of deciduous forest, while 20% found in agricultural area. This research can show the relationship between land use and causes of forest fire.