Estimating Potential Fire Danger within the Siberian Tiger Habitat

Forests of the Russian Far East, designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage site and home to the Siberian tiger a highly endangered species with approximately 350 adult tigers remaining in the wild, are severely threatened by wildland fires. The frequency of catastrophic fire events is predicted to rise due to global warming trends. The large size and mountainous terrain of the study area and government control of data sources make remote sensing the only viable source of data for spatially explicit analysis. The analysis of spatio-temporal occurrence of fire events from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and meteorological records for the 2001 – 2003 period showed that catastrophic fires in the study area are driven by the disruption of the monsoon climate. A map of Fire Danger incorporating Risk of Ignition and Potential Fire Behavior was created to evaluate areas of high risk within the Siberian Tiger habitat during catastrophic fire events. The results show that fire ignition strongly correlates with human disturbance. Both area accessibility through major roads, railroads and rivers and land use have a direct impact on the frequency of fire ignition. In addition, fire frequency in evergreen needle-leaf forests which constitute 25% of Siberian tiger habitat increases as a function of the intensity of a given fire season. Over 60% of the potential Siberian Tiger Habitat falls within “moderate” – “high”“very high” fire danger zones, which indicates species vulnerability during catastrophic fires. Future research will aim at developing a regional remotely sensed data driven model for analyzing Catastrophic Fire Threat to the Siberian Tiger, which will incorporate Habitat Preference analysis and Habitat Recovery Potential in addition to Fire Danger for several climate change scenarios.