• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.8-21
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• 2011

This study surveyed historical records on outbreak and features of forest fires during Chosun Dynasty's 518 years in being and analyzed the Annals of the Chosun Dynasty; The Diaries of the Royal Secretariat, archives from Records of the Border Defense Council, The Compilation of Ministry Proposals, Posthumous Records of King Cholchong etc. Forest fires were most prevalent and extreme during King Hyunjong (14 cases) and King Sunjo (13 cases) due to strong wind, and the biggest-ever forest fire broke out in the fourth year of King Soonjo (1804) in the east coast of Korea in Kangwon province. The fire had resulted in 61 fatalities and 2,600 destroyed houses. Forest fire in the east coast of Korea, Kangwon province, in the $13^{th}$ year of King Hyeonjong (1672) is recorded to have caused the highest number of deaths, 65people. The most frequent cause of forest fires during Chosun Dynasty was unidentified (42 cases), followed by accidental fire (10 cases), arson or lightning (3 cases), fire during hunting (2 cases), play with fire by children, destruction of patty fields and dry fields by fire and house fire (1 case respectively). By region, 56 % of forest fires erupted in the east coast (39 cases) and this was followed by the west sea (9 cases), Seoul and central region (8 cases) and the southern part of Korea (7 cases). By season, spring was found to be most vulnerable to forest fire as it accounted for 73 % of the total amounting to 46 cases. Behind were summer (11 cases), winter (6 cases) and autumn (0 case). Specifically, most forest fire broke out on April and May, which is the same as today. Archives and literature indicate that the person who involved in forest fire by accidental as well as arson had to be punished by banishment, expulsion from government office and public hanging. Also, officials in charge of the region that suffered forest fire were subject to reprimand. In conclusion, risk and gravity of forest fires were evident during the Chosun Dynasty as specified in historical archives and share many similarities with today's forest fires in terms of the duration and regional patterns.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.127-131
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• 2005

Big fire such as mountain fire may cause the prevention of the functions of the overhead cables and insulators, which may affect the operation of the transmission lines. In the worst case, this kind of disaster may have a huge effect on the whole industry of a country. However, the study on the effect of the mountain fire on the transmission line is very rare. Therefore, in order to understand the effect of the mountain fire on the polymeric insulator for transmission lines, the author observed the deformation of the sheds of the polymeric insulators and the change of the discs of the porcelain insulators under fire, varying the ignition time using the artificial ignition testing equipment which simulates the mountain fire, and investigated the electrical and mechanical characteristics of the insulators after the ignition test. For the test, the miniature insulators made of polymeric material and porcelain have been utilized. As the result, the following conclusions were obtained. First, the porcelain insulator was degraded in electrical characteristics when the insulator was subjected to the fire for approximately 5 minutes; whereas, the polymeric insulator was not degraded though there were some damage on its sheds. Second, after 20 minute exposure to the fire, the polymeric insulator lost a lot of parts of sheds, but the electrical characteristics was lowered by around $20\%$, but the porcelain insulators were electrically degraded by more than $80\%$.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.125-134
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• 2022

Forest fires in Korea usually start in the fall and occur every year until spring. Most wildfires are human resources that combine topographical characteristics and carelessness, and failure to respond in the initial stage and lack of cleanup are spreading to large-scale wildfires. In order to prevent these wildfires, active cooperation from the public is essential. As can be seen from recent wildfires, the attention of the public is needed above all else because large-scale wildfires in Korea are occurring due to the people's negligence. If a wildfire spreads and becomes large, it causes damage to life and property, and the damage is irreversible. In this study, various methods were used to prevent forest fires and improve initial suppression ability. In order to minimize damage, the model analyzed by the 119 Special Rescue Team in Gangwon, Chungcheong and nearby forest fires was analyzed on the combustion progress and wind direction by time period. The propagation speed by the wind direction was simulated. Until now, most of the wildfires have been extinguished by firefighting, but I hope that the Forest Service will take the lead and maintain coordination with related organizations.

• Journal of Korea Soil Environment Society
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.61-70
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• 1998

This research has been made for influence of forest environmental changes, such as tree-clearcutting affecting to soil chemical and physical properties, on water storage capacity at forest fire land in Keumsan, Chungnam. The analyzed factors were bulk density, porosity, field moisture saturated hydraulic conductivity air permeability and organic matter content, Field moisture saturated hydraulic conductivity and air permeability at uncutting sites were higher than those at clearcutting sites, especially the most differences were appeared at lower slope. After 2 years passed since forest fire, the most changeable parts of soil characteristics were 5-l5cm depth below soil surface. Total Porosity, coarse pore and fine pore at uncutting sites were higher than those at clearcutting sites. Also, as soil depth increased, total porosity and coarse pore were decreased. Bulk density at uncutting sites was lower than that at clearcutting sites, and was decreased as soil depth increased. The order of the change trend in field moisture saturated hydraulic conductivity, air permeability and porosity was slope lower>middle>upper. Organic matter content at uncutting sites were higher than those at clearcutting sites, and decreased as soil depth increased. As soil depth increased, bulk density had the positive correlation, in other hand, porosity, coarse pore, field moisture saturated hydraulic conductivity, air permeability and organic matter content had the negative correlation. It was concluded that forest environmental changes by forest fire degrade soil physical and chemical properties.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.95 no.3
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• pp.350-357
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• 2006

For the purpose of this study, the characteristics of surface flow through the survey of rainfall intensity and degree of slope on fire sites by using rainfall simulator was examined and analysed. And also the relationship between the amount of surface flow and rainfall intensity, degree of slope and elapsed year after forest fire occurrence influencing on the surface flow were analysed. The results obtained were as follows: 1. The amount of surface flow by year of occurrence of forest fire was increased 2,2 to 3,2 times as rainfall intensity was increased by 30 mm/hr, and 1.5 to 1.9 times as degree of slope was increased by $10^{\circ}$, 2, Even though ground vegetation in forest fire sites was recovered more than 80%, the amount of surface flow in initial rainfall was relatively much and it seemed that vegetation didn't play substantial roles in reducing runoff. 3, The amount of surface flow by rainfall intensity and degree of slope in accordance with elapsed years after forest fire was reduced 22,3% to 41,8% in three years after fire as compared to the first year of fire occurrence. The amount of surface flow were significantly differentiated by rainfall intensity and degree of slope in the first year of fire occurrence and the difference were gradually reduced afterwards. 4. In the analysis on influences of each factors on the amount of surface flow on forest fire sites, the amount of surface flow was significant differences in major impacts of each rainfall intensity, degree of slope and elapsed year after fire and interaction of rainfall intensity ${\times}$ degree of slope and rainfall intensity ${\times}$ elapsed year after fire, but no differences were observed in interaction of degree of slope ${\times}$ elapsed year after tire and rainfall intensity ${\times}$ degree of slope ${\times}$ elapsed year after tire. Rainfall intensity was the most affecting factor on the amount of surface flow and followed by degree of slope and elapsed year after fire.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Environment and Ecology Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.86-89
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• 2007

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.102 no.1
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• pp.113-121
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• 2013

It has been known that edges of forest fire areas play significant roles in post-fire change of forest ecosystem and recovery process. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationships between edge formation of burned forests and landscape characteristics with consideration on spatial autocorrelation. Samcheok fire site burned in 2000 was selected as the study area. Seven hundred fifty three of 500 $m^2$ grid cells were generated for measuring landscape characteristics. This study used the topographic variables including slop, elevation, topographic wetness index, solar radiation index and proportions of fuel and land use types. In delineating landscape characteristics correlation analysis with modified t-test were performed for exploring the relationships between edge formation and landscape characteristics. The results indicated that edge formation of burned forests was positively correlated with most variables including TWI, SRI, water, paddy, developed, farm, grass, bare soil, and negatively related with elevation, slope and all fuel types. Especially TWI (r=0.437) showed a strong positive correlation with edge formation. According to the results, edge of burned forests were likely formed when proportions of heterogeneous land use types were high with mild slope and low elevation.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.80-92
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• 2007

Forest fire is the dominant large-scale disturbance mechanism in the Korean temperate forest, and it strongly influences forest structure and function. Moreover burn severity incorporates both short- and long-term post-fire effects on the local and regional environment. Burn severity is defined by the degree to which an ecosystem has changed owing to the fire. Vegetation rehabilitation may specifically vary according to burn severity after fire. To understand burn severity and process of vegetation rehabilitation at the damaged area after large-fire is required a lot of man powers and budgets. However the analysis of burn severity in the forest area using satellite imagery can acquire rapidly information and more objective results remotely in the large-fire area. Space and airbone sensors have been used to map area burned, assess characteristics of active fires, and characterize post-fire ecological effects. For classifying fire damaged area and analyzing burn severity of Samcheok fire area occurred in 2000, Cheongyang fire in 2002, and Yangyang fire in 2005 we utilized Normalized Burn Ratio(NBR) technique. The NBR is temporally differenced between pre- and post-fire datasets to determine the extent and degree of change detected from burning. In this paper we use pre- and post-fire imagery from the Landsat TM and ETM+ imagery to compute the NBR and evaluate large-scale patterns of burn severity at 30m spatial resolution. 65% in the Samcheok fire area, 91% in the Cheongyang fire area and 65% in the Yangyang fire area were corresponded to burn severity class above 'High'. Therefore the use of a remotely sensed Differenced Normalized Burn Ratio(${\Delta}NBR$) by RS and GIS allows for the burn severity to be quantified spatially by mapping damaged domain and burn severity across large-fire area.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2008

The effect of thinned trees which are produced from forest thinning on forest fire was studied in this work. To investigate the effect of thinning slash, Yang-yang, In-je, and Ga-pyeong-gun were selected as thinning-areas and non-thinning areas. The research was carried out with the variations of tree's types, area's characteristics, thinning strength, thinning types, and pile types of thinned tree. The survey areas of 14 areas were selected at Yangyang-gun(5 areas), Gapyeong-gun(4 areas), and Inje-gun(5 areas), and on-the-spot investigations were carried out at the thinning areas of 9 and the non-thinning areas of 5, respectively. Non-thinning areas of 5, which are adjacent to thinning areas, were selected for the comparison with thinning areas and for the analysis of risk of forest fire. It is considered that forest fire have no chance to diffuse to a tree trunk because the height of thinned trees was lower than 1 m. However, it is considered that forest fire may affect directly to a tree trunk if it spread to piled thinned tree because there was no space between thinned trees and trees. Furthermore, it was found that re-ignition had a chance to occur due to lots of piled thinning trees.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.63-69
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• 2008

The characteristics of the spread of a forest fire are generally related to the attributes of combustibles, geographical features, and meteorological conditions, such as wind conditions. The most common methodology used to create a prediction model for the spread of forest fires, based on the numerical analysis of the development stages of a forest fire, is an analysis of heat energy transmission by the stage of heat transmission. When a forest fire breaks out, the analysis of the transmission velocity of heat energy is quantifiable by the spread velocity of flame movement through a physical and chemical analysis at every stage of the fire development from flame production and heat transmission to its termination. In this study, the formula used for the 1-D surface forest fire behavior prediction model, derived from a numerical analysis of the surface flame spread rate of solid combustibles, is introduced. The formula for the 1-D surface forest fire behavior prediction model is the estimated equation of the flame spread velocity, depending on the condition of wind velocity on the ground. Experimental and theoretical equations on flame duration, flame height, flame temperature, ignition temperature of surface fuels, etc., has been applied to the device of this formula. As a result of a comparison between the ROS(rate of spread) from this formula and ROSs from various equations of other models or experimental values, a trend suggesting an increasing curved line of the exponent function under 3m/s or less wind velocity condition was identified. As a result of a comparison between experimental values and numerically analyzed values for fallen pine tree leaves, the flame spread velocity reveals a prediction of an approximately 10% upward tendency under wind velocity conditions of 1 to 2m/s, and of an approximately 20% downward tendency under those of 3m/s.