Prioritisation of Criteria in the Analysis of Forest Fire Vulnerable Areas by Interval Valued Neutrosophic AHP and Spherical Fuzzy AHP Methods

Forest fires can occur for different reasons and can spread rapidly over large areas, posing a significant environmental problem. Approximately 12 million hectares of land in Turkey, especially in the Aegean and Mediterranean regions, are at risk of forest fires. Risk zones refer to areas where fires have the potential to start easily and spread rapidly to the surrounding area. It is difficult to achieve complete control over natural processes. Accordingly, this study addresses the problem of prioritisation of criteria in the analysis of forest fire vulnerable areas. 5 main criteria and 17 sub-criteria were determined by the expert team and studies in the literature. The main criteria are Climate and weather conditions, Vegetation, Geographical features, Human activities and Meteorological and remote sensing. The sub criteria are Temperature, Humidity, Precipitation, Flammable plant species, Densely forested areas, Dried vegetation, Slope, Aspect, Proximity to the seashore, Soil structure, Settlement density, Agriculture and animal husbandry, Tourism, Industry and power lines, Historical forest fire data, Drought index and Afforestation. These criteria play an important role in the probability of forest fire. These criteria were ranked for the first time using IVN-AHP and SF-AHP methods. Humidity ranks first with 9.47% from IVN-AHP method and 11.07% from SF-AHP method. When humidity decreases, vegetation becomes dry and flammable. This situation prepares the ground for even the smallest spark to turn into a large-scale forest fire. The results of both methods are consistent with the real world situation.