Comparison of the fuzzy AHP method, the spatial correlation method, and the Dong model to predict the fire high-risk areas in Hyrcanian forests of Iran

This study was done to evaluate the efficiency of three methods to predict the high-risk areas for fire in District Three of Neka Zalemroud forests located in Mazandaran Province, Iran. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (fuzzy AHP) and the spatial correlation method were used to model fire risk in the study area. The Dong model was used to provide the fire risk map. Following the construction of fire risk maps using three methods, the map of actual fires was overlaid to validate the used methods. Then the area of the high-risk and very high-risk classes of each fire risk map within the perimeters of actual fires was calculated. Results showed that the high-risk areas in the fire risk map prepared by the fuzzy AHP and spatial correlation methods closely follow the actual fires. On the other hand, the high-risk areas in the fire risk map prepared by the Dong model showed only a moderate agreement with actual fire areas. The final results showed that the fuzzy AHP model (accuracy 0.8) and the spatial correlation model (accuracy 0.92) have the strongest ability to predict the fire high-risk areas in Hyrcanian forests of Iran, relative to the Dong model (accuracy 0.51).