Fire risk in old urban centres

Most of the cities have urban quarters that reflect an aesthetic, historical and cultural sense of place and identity through history. Such quarters are generally blocked-up in the central areas and are often an integral part of the city with their structural features and identities. The rapid urbanization in developing countries reflects itself by the redistribution of population and consequently the redistribution of space, whose general trend is the fast growth on the periphery and the socioeconomic decline in central areas. This spatial transformation drive cities into a social and economic chaos, which increase various risks associated with disasters. As a result, fire incidents become an important urbanization problem, especially within the urban quarters, where historic buildings are concentrated. 

The ‘fire’ is defined as ‘disaster’ by laws in Turkey. Nevertheless, different than other disasters, fire is caused by human or technical failures dominantly. Therefore, fire causes and factors could be determined previously; in other words precaution and prevention efforts could be favorable for minimizing the effects of fire. The population and their attendance to economic and social activity, which also determine the distribution of activities within the built environment, take place in cities. This arrangement forms the basis for studying the distribution of other urban phenomena, so the fire problem. Thus, fire safety and risk control methods require knowledge of various factors including socioeconomic and built environment characteristics.

For improved urbanization and fire-safe built environments, alteration in urban areas, especially in historic urban quarters, should be controlled through planning process, and fire problem should be handled firstly at urban scale. This study hypothesis that fire risk varies with a number of factors and should be defined in urban context. Consequently, this study would try to define the ‘urban fire risk’ term, and its factors related with urban elements in general. Urban fire risk factors would be examined for historic urban quarter of Ankara where the Ankara Citadel and many timber historic buildings are located.  Main assumptions of this study are that the fire rate is differentiated not only according to structural factors, but also according to environmental and socioeconomic factors, and the risk management analysis could be used for defining areas containing more fire risks within the city.

Forests are one of the most valuable wealth on the earth planet and are living place for animals and plants, so protecting of them is an important and necessary order. One of the main reasons of forest annihilation is not controlled fires that destroy wide areas of forest and cause desertification. Remote sensing and GIS can be so much beneficial for studying Fire risk. In this research we investigated fire risk in protected forests in Central Alborz that has occurred every year and caused to plenty of damages. In this research Fire Risk method was used which included gradient environment factors, gradient direction and vegetation cover. Eventually area’s fire risk maps were prepared which had weak relation with previous fire data and this point demonstrates low efficiency of presented model.

Keywords:
Remote Sensing and GIS, Forest, Fire Risk Model, Fire Risk, Central Alborz’s Forest.

Only 20 of more than 80 medieval churches of Novgorod are extant nowadays. The city of Novgorod was struck by 91 fires from 1045 to 1433, and it seems that the inhabitants got used to reconstructing their wooden houses frequently. Most of the churches were erected in early times with wood, later burned down and were rebuilt with wood, sometimes seven or more times over the years. Later the builders changed their strategy and organized far more expensive but also more fire–resisting stone material. The churches were erected in stone and thus provided far more security in the case of a fire. Novgorod was the central collecting point for dangerous forest products such as furs, honey and beeswax. These products were also stored inside the stone churches. In case of a fire these valuables attracted plunderers. The church buildings themselves were threatened by lightning and the open fire of candles used for Christian ceremonies. Nevertheless stone churches were more secure than their wooden counterparts. In the time period up to 1480 more than 70 of 80 churches were replaced by stone buildings.

ABSTRACT The management, prevention and mitigation of urban risks are assumed as priority actions within the framework of any rehabilitation and requalification process at the urban scale, particularly in the case of old city centers. In the most specific domain of urban safety, seismic and fire risk, which can cause serious consequences, are part of the collective memory of several communities and must be inevitably highlighted. The severity of the resulting damages is a sufficient reason to strongly value prevention, planning and mitigation strategies, limiting their consequences and guaranteeing permanent improvement actions. Bearing in mind the exposed, and in the scope of a research work carried out, a new urban fire risk assessment methodology was developed and applied to the old city center of Seixal. This simplified methodology is based on pre-established method called A.R.I.C.A. Over 500 buildings were assessed using this methodology, and the results were spatially analyzed using an integrated Geographical Information System tool (GIS). It is worth noting that the integration of the risk results into a GIS platform is a valuable step towards the risk mitigation at a urban scale, allowing city councils or regional authorities to plan interventions on the basis of a global spatial view of the site under analysis, leading to more accurate and comprehensive risk mitigation strategies that support the requirements of safety and emergency planning in case of urban fire.