2006).įorest fires are mainly caused by two factors: human activity (e.g., deforestation) (Cochrane 2001, Skole and Tucker 1993), and the natural environment (e.g., lightning strikes) (Tutin et al. Forest fires cause severe damage to forests and surrounding communities because they spread rapidly to very large areas (Mollicone et al. 2011), and various disasters such as forest fires, landslides, and pests (Lecina‐Diaz et al. However, forests are sensitive to the impacts of climate change, human activity (McKinley et al. 2015) and are important environmental resources, producing approximately two-thirds of the world’s oxygen (McKinley et al. The established FFSM can support future efforts on forest resource protection and environmental management planning in Gangwon-do.įorests cover about one-third of the Earth's surface (Keenan et al. Human activity and interference are the other important factors that affect forest fires. A slope of approximately 17° (moderately steep) has a considerable impact on the occurrence of forest fires. The results show that the most important factor in the Gangwon-do region is slope. Factor importance analysis was performed to identify the important factors of the occurrence of forest fires in Gangwon-do. To verify the accuracy, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was used. The factors related to climate, topography, hydrology, and human activity were constructed. In this study, a forest fire susceptibility map (FFSM) of Gangwon-do was constructed using Google Earth Engine (GEE) and three machine learning algorithms: Classification and Regression Trees (CART), Random Forest (RF), and Boosted Regression Trees (BRT). As the Gangwon-do region in Korea has abundant forest resources and ecological diversity as Korea's largest forest area, spatial data on forest fire susceptibility of the region are urgently required. Forest fires are one of the most frequently occurring natural hazards, causing substantial economic loss and destruction of forest cover.