O manejo integrado do fogo como ferramenta de redução de incêndios florestais: um estudo de viabilidade de aplicação de queimas prescritas na Estação Ecológica da UFMG

Abstract

Wildfires have caused damages in several regions of the planet, such as loss of biodiversity, air pollution, degradation of water resources and soil, damage to the population health, high financial costs and human deaths. The zero-fire policy has generated a large accumulation of fuel, resulting in increasingly severe fires. In view of this, the agencies responsible for managing protected areas in Brazil began, a little over a decade ago, to adopt the Integrated Fire Management (MIF) approach to deal with the problems caused by uncontrolled fire. MIF consists of strategies and actions that seek to minimize the impacts of the misuse of fire and maximize the benefits of fire in an ecologically appropriate regime. MIF is based on three dimensions: 1) Fire management (prevention, suppression or use of fire); 2) Fire ecology (ecological attributes of fire); 3) Fire culture (socioeconomic and cultural needs of fire use). Within the scope of MIF it is possible to use controlled fire for fuel management through prescribed burning, which consists of the scientific application of fire in a pre-established and studied area, with predetermined objectives. The UFMG Ecological Station (EEco-UFMG) is an urban protected area that suffers from forest fires. Despite the application of conventional prevention techniques, the area has been repeatedly hit by uncontrolled fires, causing damage to its biodiversity. The present research aims to evaluate the feasibility of using MIF at EEco-UFMG, focusing on the application of prescribed burning as a fuel management tool to reduce the intensity and severity of wildfires. To achieve the research objectives, a study of the EEco-UFMG ecosystems was carried out to verify whether there are environments in the area that resulted of an ecologically appropriate regime of fire. A study of the climatic aspects was developed using two methodological procedures: the calculation of climatological water balance to identify the prescribed burning periods and; a microclimate analysis based on biogeographical aspects to identify patterns of oscillation in temperature and relative humidity. A study of the occurrences and risks of forest fires was also carried out to characterize the local fire regime and to identify how fire is being used and the sources of ignition. The research demonstrated that the current fire regime is inadequate and harmful, with a high frequency of fires in periods of low humidity and high temperatures. It was found that EEco-UFMG has ecosystems in which it is possible to apply prescribed burning within the scope of the MIF and identified that the months of April to June are the most suitable for using this technique. Fuel management through prescribed burning, within the scope of the MIF, has shown itself to be a tool with great potential to reduce the impacts of wildfires.