Visibility Analysis of Fire Watchtowers Using GIS; A Case Study in Dalaman State Forest Enterprise

The determination of the forest fires as quickly as possible and accurately their location is very important for fighting forest fires. Therefore, fire watchtowers should be located on high peaks where watchtower staffs are able to watch most of the forest areas. In this study, Dalaman State Forest Enterprise was selected as first-degree fire-prone region, and visibility analysis has performed to fire watchtowers network. With Visibility Analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the location of each watchtower was evaluated separately and visible forest areas monitored by fire watchtowers were identified. Visibility analysis was conducted for 9 fire watchtowers which supervise the study area. We determine forest areas observed by each individual watchtower and more than one watchtower, and also invisible forest areas. The results showed that 47.2 % of forest area could be observed by fire watchtowers. In order to increase visibility percentage to reasonable levels, new fire watchtowers could be added or inactive fire watchtowers could be moved to suitable locations.