The prevention of forest fires and other wildland fires embraces a wide range of measures that modify fuels and modify human behavior around or within the fire-threatened resources so that the initiation, spread, and intensity of fires are reduced to such an extent that they can be controlled by the technical means available. In order to minimize any adverse impacts, some of the proposed measures outlined here may need to be modified when being applied to high conservation value areas particularly reserves. A major component of forest fire prevention is managing the human element, which is the main cause of forest fires.
People start most fires in the tropical forests of the world.
Fuels Modification Fuel management involves the treatment of combustible surface fuels and the near-surface aerial fuels which allow fires to spread from the ground and into the forest canopy. The establishment and maintenance of mineral earth fire breaks along boundaries between the forest estate and other areas can be useful in the control of low intensity wildfires. However, since fires may easily cross fire breaks which are several meters wide, it is often extremely uneconomical to establish and to maintain such large unproductive strips of land. Fuel breaks can be maintained economically in the tropics by agricultural or agroforestry systems. The design of agricultural fuel breaks should be according to the suitability of sites for growing crops.