Planning Response Times of Fire-Fighting Vehicles to Forest Fires on Active Fire Protection Organization

Turkey has a sensitive nature in terms of forest fires due to its vegetation and climate. This situation has a vital importance for fire squads and fire-fighting vehicles to arrive at fire scene within the shortest time (critical response time 15 minutes). In Turkey, there are several practices of overland and aerial response to forest fires, and various tools and equipments are used. Accordingly, there are fire-fighting vehicles in various numbers and features for the risk and sensitivity of the fire within each Forest Enterprise Directorates or Forest Sub-District Directorates. In this study which is aimed to improve efficient organization techniques of responding to forest fires and to minimize the fire damage by reducing response time to fire, distance coverage (km) of each of the suitable fire-fighting vehicles (sprinkler truck and first responder vehicle) on each road within the critical response time (15 min.) on the condition of launching vehicles from the station (fire operation center) have been measured and the remotest points where they reached have been marked. These points, then, have been introduced as areas, where each of the fire-fighting vehicles can respond within the critical response time, by means of combining them on GIS (Geographic Information Systems). Finally, measures that must be taken have been introduced by doing planning with respect to responding to fire efficiently within the frame of opportunities provided by advancing technology.