Developing fire danger maps for identifying fire hot spots and improving fire management in Mt. Kenya forest

Human-induced wildfires have caused major loses to forest resources, wildlife and property in Mt. Kenya forest. The Central Highlands Conservancy covering Mt. Kenya forest has limited and insufficient technical fire management capacities to control the spread of large scale fire events in the recent past. The project FIREMAPS seeks to support wildfire management in Mt. Kenya forest by developing fire danger maps to be used by the government and communities to identify fire hot spots, support fire prevention and firefighting. The FIREMAPS project will achieve its goal by i) undertaking a multi-stakeholder participatory engagement of communities around Mt. Kenya forest to identify fire prone areas and causes of wildfires and ii) it will analyse records on socio-economic activities, weather data, vegetation types and wildfire data to develop fire danger maps. Wildfire related issues are multi- and interdisciplinary in nature and there is no single organization that can handle these issues on their own. The FIREMAPS project will combine scientific evidence and local knowledge of communities on fire management in Mt. Kenya one of the five water towers of Kenya. Through the experiences gained from learning together and interacting with communities, universities (BOKU and Egerton University) and Kenya Forest Research Institute (KEFRI) it will be possible to make the research relevant to the needs of communities, improve their capabilities, and provide a sustainable knowledge and technology transfer to the communities. The recommendations for monitoring and managing of wildfires will be disseminated to volunteer village fire crews, community leaders and other relevant stakeholders considering the fire danger maps.