Analysis of the problem of forest fires and their implications for the loss of forest cover in Cintalapa, Chiapas

The municipality of Cintalapa is located within the Valle-Zoque region, which has a high presence of fires in the state of Chiapas. That is why the present research aimed to determine the causes of the high frequency and recurrence of forest fires in some critical ejidos of Cintalapa, in addition to analyzing the changes in coverage and impact of fires on forest vegetation, at a certain time scale. To identify the causes of fires, questionnaires were applied in eight locations, based on a mapping of critical ejidos with a history of fires. In a second phase, changes in coverage and vegetation were delimited through the processing of Landsat images, series 2,3,5 and 6, corresponding to the years 1993, 2002, 2011 and 2014; and a map of the most critical fires during the years 1998, 2012 and 2019 in the municipality of Cintalapa was generated. The results showed that the main cause of fires corresponds to agricultural burns; 45 % of farmers do not know the techniques and procedures to perform them according to NOM-015 SEMARNAT/SAGARPA-2007. Losses of forest cover were quantified in the oak-pine forest (2 363 hectares) and medium and high evergreen and sub-evergreen jungle forest (1 873 hectares), caused by fires. The obtained information contributes to the generation of knowledge about the role that communities play in fire management, through irregular agricultural practices and their impacts on the loss of forest cover.