PERFORMANCE OF THE "MONTE ALEGRE FORMULA" THE BRAZILIAN FOREST FIRE DANGER RATING INDEX

Abstract

The "Monte Alegre Formula"  was developed in 1972 using fire occurrence and meteorological data of the central part of the state of Paraná, and has since been used by most forest institutions and companies in Brazil to predict fire danger.  In this work the performance of the FMA was evaluated in three different situations:  firstly, using a 20 year data set from the forest district where the index was developed;  secondly, using data from a forest district in the State of Santa Catarina, in the period of January 1988 to December 1995, it was compared to the locally used index, the same that was used by the South Carolina State Department of Forestry (U.S.A.) in the 1960’s;  and thirdly, it was compared to the U.S.A. National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) using data collected in the Suwannee district, Florida, from April 1^st 1991 to March 31^st 1992.  Results showed a good performance of the FMA, especially considering its calculation simplicity.