Intermittent fires in Northeast Iran in the autumn of 2010 resulted in the burning of some valuable forest habitats. The objective of this study was to apply geographic information systems (GIS) to determine to what degree three key factors (environmental, climatic, and anthropogenic) influence the severity rating of fires in these forests. The forest fire sites were surveyed and imported into GIS. The severity of burnt areas was considered in relation to the three factors. Statistical functions were used to calculate the effect of the factors at each fire site. Logistic and stepwise regressions were used to determine the fire severity rating related to each factor. The results indicate that as the number of cumulative days after the onset of fire increased, the burnt areas also increased at a rate of 303.5 ha/day (R2 = 0.95). Consequently, forest density, daily mean wind speed, daily mean temperature and distance to roads were highly correlated with the daily severity rating of forest fires, and only daily temperature and forest density affected the size of the burnt areas. Prediction maps show that about 24% of the forests has high fire durability, amounting to 7% of the fire-sensitive area. The findings from this case indicate that GIS can be effectively employed in fire management to assess damage, and possibly to prevent future fires, thus assisting in the preservation of valuable forest resources.

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