Swissfire: technisch modernisiert und dank Archivrecherchen inhaltlich erweitert

Abstract

Swissfire: technically updated and enhanced through archive research The Swiss forest fire database Swissfire is a core element of the national forest fire strategy. The multilingual database has been built progressively thanks to the cooperation of the Swiss federal institute for forest, snow and landscape research (WSL), the Federal office for the environment and the Cantons. Swissfire uses the free open source database software PostgreSQL and allows the online collection and management of event-specific information on forest fires as well as the generation of forest fire statistics. The associated web applications were developed using the WSL open source platform Box. Parameters such as date, location, extent, type and cause of the fire as well as forest-related parameters such as the affected forest type are recorded. Overall aim is the record of all Swiss forest fire data in the most comprehensive and standardized way possible. Historical events are therefore also of interest and are usually retrieved through archive researches. In a pilot project for evaluating the potential for historic fires in online and electronic newspaper archives, 779 events were retrieved throughout Switzerland, as well as supplementary information on additional 80 known events. Thanks to available online geoportals, it was possible to locate precisely the ignition point of 640 fires in Ticino and Misox, for which only the place name was known. Fire brigade archives are also valuable sources of information: since 1938, 870 forest fire events were retrieved based on fire-fighting reports, for which no notification to the cantonal forest service existed. Based on such archive researches, analyses of past and present fire regimes become possible: the formerly very large differences in fire frequency between the southern and northern sides of the Alps seem to have diminished in recent decades. However, there are still considerable differences among the contributions of single municipalities to Swissfire in the frame of the archive researches, suggesting that there is still potential for adding so far unregistered fire events.