Forest firefighting technology: Strategic water reservoir placement for terrestrial and aerial vehicles

Abstract

Forest fires pose significant environmental, economic, and social threats to protected areas. Understanding their destructive potential is crucial for effective risk management. Two key factors in firefighting are water availability and emergency response networks. This study aimed to determine optimal locations for water reservoirs, supporting terrestrial and/or aerial firefighting in the Caparaó National Park within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest biome. Geotechnological tools (fuzzy logic, Euclidean distance, network analysis) were employed to identify strategic reservoir locations, considering land use, slope, proximity to roads, watercourses, and fire risk. The application of these methodologies revealed that terrestrial firefighting alone fell short of meeting the specified demand, capable of addressing at most 92.13 % of demand within the longest available timeframe (20 min). Additionally, the number of reservoirs required for this method was significantly higher (724 reservoirs) compared to aerial firefighting (42 reservoirs). Analyzing the investment needed for reservoir construction relative to the covered area in each evaluated scenario, it is evident that the terrestrial approach incurs a significantly higher cost ($40,664.35.km−2) than the aerial approach ($2358.98.km−2). From these results, it was concluded that the use of geotechnological tools is efficient in identifying strategic water reservoir locations for replenishing firefighting vehicles, and all methodologies support the creation of priority measures and plans for firefighting, proving to be viable, applicable, replicable, and adaptable to any other protected areas and economically significant regions.