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Instruction

We thank you for the time you are dedicating to us, yours is a valuable contribution to the activities we are developing to reduce the risk of fires in our territories. By contributing to the collection of data, in fact, you are helping us to know better the characteristics of forest fuels, allowing us to assess the risk of fires and allowing the bodies responsible to develop appropriate measures in terms of interventions aimed at securing the territory and reducing the severity of future fires.

The application works in a simple way: you will be offered several reference images, taken from a specific manual developed by Robert Keane1 for each type of fuel. You should only choose the photo that most resembles what you see at the point where you take the survey in an area of ​​one meter by one meter. Fuels are divided into:

  • thin fuels, or those portions of dry plant material (twigs and stems) with a diameter smaller than a pencil (about 6 mm);
  • medium fuels, or those portions of dry vegetation with a diameter between the size of a pencil and the diameter of a stopper of a plastic bottle (between 0.6 mm and 2.5 cm);
  • large fuels, i.e. those portions of dry vegetation that have a diameter between the size of the cap diameter of a plastic bottle and the diameter of your wrist (between 2.5 cm and 7-8 cm);
  • live herbaceous fuels, or herbs, divided between monocotyledons (for example, the bermuda grass) and dicotyledons (such as the clover);
  • dry herbaceous fuels, or the part of dried herbs you see, indistinctly between monocotyledons and dicotyledons;
  • shrub fuels, that is all shrubs, for this category you will also be asked to estimate the average height in meters;
  • Finally you will be presented with stylized illustrations that represent the structure of the forest you are surveying, also in this case you will have to choose the one that best represents what you see.

It can often happen that one of the categories just described is not present. If one of the categories is not present, simply move on and do not select any photos for that category.  

If you have doubts about the survey you are making, choose the photos of the categories you can identify and then take a photo of what you see with the appropriate button, this will allow us to check and adjust the evaluation.

The survey that you are about to do is anonymous but requires the recording of the position of your device, it is important that you are aware of it. For this reason, with the request for credentials to access the survey, we assume that you consent, anonymously, to provide us with this information.

Finally, if some terms that you find in the app are not clear, or you want to deepen the issues related to the fight against forest fires and their prevention, we recommend you consult the glossary on the site https://www.mefistoforestfires.eu/content/common -terminology-and-good-practices or through the dedicated Forest Fire Glossary app.

 

For IPhone 7 or higher users

For using the app properly a further configuration of the Safari browser is required:

It is  necessary to enable WebSQL in Safari 13 on iOS is settings, Safari -> Advanced -> Experimental Features -> disable the 'Disable WebSQL' option.