MANUAL – In order to comply with Article 10 of (EC) Regulation 2152/2003
ANNEX IISupplementary provisions
ANNEX II MANUAL – In order to comply with Article 10 of (EC) Regulation 2152/2003 COMMON CORE FOREST FIRE DATA – TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS The following technical specifications shall apply in relation to the collection of the common core data to be recorded and notified for each forest fire occurred, as indicated in Article 9. Data shall be supplied in comma delimited ASCII format files (i.e. CSV - Comma Separated Value format). Every fire will be one record of the file. The following information will have to be included in each fire record: (a) Date and local time of first alert Composed by: a1. Date of first alert: The local date (day, month, year) at which the official forest fire protection services were informed of the outbreak of the fire. The expected data format is [YYYYMMDD], example: 20030702 (2 July 2003) a2. Time of first alert: the local time (hour, minute) at which the official forest fire protection services were informed of the outbreak of the fire. The expected data format is [HHMM], with HH from 00 to 23. Examples: 0915, 1446, 0035. The date and time of first alert are related to the event that triggers the activation of the fire fighting resources. Therefore it is not necessarily the time when a fire, or a possible fire, is physically reported to the forest fire office, but more generally the time when a member of the forest fire protection organization is first alerted of a possible fire or when he directly firstly detects it. When a check for confirmation of the alert is performed before the activation of the fire fighting crews, the very first alert has to be reported. (b) Date and local time of first intervention Composed by: b1. Date of first intervention: the local date (day, month, year) on which the first fire-fighting units arrived on the scene of the forest fire. The expected data format is [YYYYMMDD], example: 20030702 (2 July 2003) b2. Time of first intervention: the local time (hour, minute) at which the first fire-fighting units arrived on the scene of the forest fire. The expected data format is [HHMM], with HH from 00 to 23. Examples: 0915, 1446, 0035. The date and time of first intervention corresponds to the time when the first fire fighting crew reaches the fire front, i.e. the moment when the first attack starts. (c) Date and local time of extinction Composed by: c1. Date of fire extinction: the local date (day, month, year) on which the fire was completely extinguished, i.e. when the last fire-fighting units left the scene of the forest fire. The expected data format is [YYYYMMDD], example: 20030702 (for 2 July 2003) c2. Time of fire extinction: the local time (hour, minute) at which the fire was completely extinguished, i.e. when the last fire-fighting units left the scene of the forest fire. The expected data format is [HHMM], with HH from 00 to 23. Examples: 0915, 1 446, 0035. The date and time of extinction correspond to the time when the fire front was completely extinguished. Therefore it does include the mop up activities and it does not include the time for the crews to return to the headquarters. Note: The starting of a new day is midnight (time: 00:00). Therefore, if the first alert is for example at 23:30 and the first intervention is at 00:30, than these events have to be reported in different days ( d and d +1 respectively). (d) Location of the outbreak at the commune level The name and code of the commune ( 1 ) where the outbreak of the fire was reported . It shall follow the Member State nomenclature, and the complete list of commune names and codes in use in the Member State and adopted in the common core forest fire database will have to be supplied together with the fire data in a separate file. The code of the higher hierarchical territorial unit to which the commune belongs to shall also be recorded. Such territorial unit will correspond to the Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) level 3 as defined in the Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 2 ) . The recorded NUTS3 code shall be in accordance with the five characters codes reported in Annex I of the same Regulation. New Member States, for which a list of NUTS3 codes is not provided in Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003, will follow the standard ‘Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS)’ established by the Statistical Office of the European Communities. The reported codes will be the most recent NUTS3 codes as maintained in the GISCO information system. (e) Total fire-damaged area The total fire-damaged area corresponds to the estimated final fire size, i.e. the extension of the final area burned by the fire (regardless of the level of damage). The extension is measured in fraction of hectares with a precision until the second digit, without using the comma as separator (i.e. in hectares*100) Examples: Burned area = 12,05 hectares, it shall be recorded as 1205; Burned area = 3,2 hectares, it shall be recorded as 320. In case of unburned areas located inside the burned perimeter (unburned islands), their surface should be excluded from the estimate of the fire size (f) Breakdown of the fire-damaged area into forest and other wooded land and non forested areas The total burned area has to be divided into: f(1) : forest and other wooded land area f(2) : non forested area ‘Forest’ and ‘other wooded land’ are defined according to Article 3 of the Forest Focus Regulation. ‘Non forested area’ corresponds to the ‘other land’ defined in Article 3 of the same regulation. If however the fire burns also agricultural or urban land, these areas should not be included in the total burnt area. The extension is measured in fraction of hectares until the second digit without using the comma as separator (i.e. in hectares*100). (g) Presumed cause The presumed cause of the fire should be classified into one of the following four categories: 1. Unknown; 2. Natural cause; 3. Accidental cause or negligence, meaning connection to a human activity but without any intention of causing the fire (e.g. accidents caused by power lines, railways, works, bonfires, etc.). 4. Deliberate cause or arson. The datum to be recorded in the fire record is the category number (1 to 4) that is indicated in the list above. Fire record and data example A complete fire record will contain all the data items (fields) summarized in the table below. Field name Description Ref. ( *1 ) Length ( *2 ) Fire data example FIREID MS Fire identifier 1 DATEAL Date of first alert a1 8 20030813 TIMEAL Time of first alert a2 4 1435 DATEIN Date of first intervention b1 8 20030813 TIMEIN Time of first intervention b2 4 1520 DATEEX Date of fire extinction c1 8 20030814 TIMEEX Time of fire extinction c2 4 0010 NUTS3 NUTS3 code (Regulation EC 1059/2003) d 5 ITG21 CODECOM Commune Code (MS nomenclature) d 090047 NAMECOM Commune Name (MS nomenclature) d OLBIA TBA Total Burned Area (Ha*100) e 2540 FBA Forested Burned Area (Ha*100) f1 2000 NFBA Not Forested Burned Area (Ha*100) f2 540 CAUSE Presumed Cause g 1 1 The fire record given in the column ‘Fire data example’ will be recorded in the delivered CSV file as the following: 1, 20030813, 1435, 20030813, 1520, 20030814, 0010, ITG21, 090047, OLBIA, 2540, 2000, 540, 1 Important note No one item should be left blank in a fire record. A specific code should be explicitly defined for each data type and recorded in case of missing information. Therefore missing data codes shall be defined for different data types The following missing data codes are suggested: Date (fields DATEAL, DATEIN, DATEEX): 99999999 Time (fields TIMEAL, TIMEIN, TIMEEX): 9999 Location (fields NUTS3, CODECOM, NAMECOM): XX Area (fields TBA, FBA, NFBA): -999 Cause (field CAUSE): 9 Empty fields (with neither data nor missing data code) will be considered mistakes and the corresponding fire record will have to be processed separately. Data quality assessment Analytical data quality assessment will be performed upon receipt of data from the Member States, in order to ensure integrity and logical consistency of the database. In a first stage individual fields will be examined to verify that data domains and validation rules are respected (see table below). Field name Data domains and validation rules for individual fields Codes for missing data FIREID No duplicate values accepted (ID must exist and be unique within the country) Missing data not accepted DATEAL Date must exist in the reporting year (e.g. year = reporting year; month domain: 1..12; day domain: depending on month) 99999999 TIMEAL Domains: Hour (0..23); Minutes (0..59) 9999 DATEIN Date must exist in the reporting year (e.g. year = reporting year; month domain: 1..12; day domain: depending on month) 99999999 TIMEIN Domains: Hour (0..23); Minutes (0..59) 9999 DATEEX Date must exist in the reporting year (e.g. year = reporting year; month domain: 1..12; day domain: depending on month) 99999999 TIMEEX Domains: Hour (0..23); Minutes (0..59) 9999 NUTS3 NUTS3 code must exist in Appendix I of Regulation EC 1059/2003 (or in GISCO database for new MS) XX CODECOM Commune code must correspond to a code in the list of commune codes provided by the MS XX NAMECOM Commune name must correspond to a name in the list of commune names provided by the MS XX TBA Domain: TBA > 0 -999 FBA Domain: FBA ≥ 0 -999 NFBA Domain: NFBA ≥ 0 -999 CAUSE Domain: CAUSE in (1,2,3,4) 9 In a second stage logical consistency among fields will be checked. To this end a number of rules will be applied to the received data, such as in the following, not exhaustive, examples: 1. The temporal sequence ‘date/time alarm’ -> ‘date/time intervention’ -> ‘date/time extinction’ should be respected. It can only be accepted in some cases that ‘date/time alarm’ = ‘date/time intervention’ in the event that the first attack follows immediately fire detection (fire detected by a fighting crew), although this situation is not often met. 2. It shall be verified that ‘Forested burned area’ + ‘Not forested burned area’ = ‘Total burned area’. 3. The commune indicated in CODECOM and NAMECOM shall belong to the territorial unit indicated in NUTS3. ( 1 ) For Belgium ‘Gemeenten/Communes’, for Denmark ‘Kommuner’, for Germany ‘Gemeinden’, for Greece ‘Demoi/Koinotites/’, for Spain ‘Municipios’, for France ‘Communes’, for Ireland ‘Counties or County boroughs’, for Italy ‘Comuni’, for Luxembourg ‘Communes’, for the Netherlands ‘Gemeenten’, for Austria ‘Gemeinden’, for Portugal ‘Freguesias’, for Finland ‘Kunnat/Kommuner’, for Sweden ‘Kommuner’ and for the United Kingdom ‘Wards’. For Cyprus ‘Chor’, for Czech Republic ‘Obec’, for Estonia ‘Linn/Vald’, for Hungary ‘Telep’, for Lithuania ‘Savyvaldybe’, for Latvia ‘Pagasts/Pilseta’, for Poland ‘Gmina’, for Slovenia ‘Obcina’, for Slovakia ‘Obce/Ku’. ( 2 ) OJ L 154, 21.6.2003, p. 1 . Regulation as amended by Regulation (EC) No 1888/2005 ( OJ L 309, 25.11.2005, p. 1 ). ( *1 ) Reference to the paragraphs of this Annex. ( *2 ) Length of the field (number of characters) given only for fixed length fields. The commune code, since it is reported following the MS nomenclature, might have different length according to the country.