Search

El presente trabajo plantea como problema los daños provocados por la quema intencional de basura en el área central de la ciudad de Río Gallegos entre los meses de otoño e invierno de 2015. Para ello se presenta como objetivo principal investigar las consecuencias de los focos de incendio provocados por la quema de basura intencional hasta 150 metros de distancia en el centro de la ciudad de Río Gallegos; con el fin de reconocer los daños provocados por los mismos. Metodológicamente, se aplica la técnica Buffer a partir de cada foco de incendio con anillos de 50 metros cada uno. Se aplica un muestreo bietápico para seleccionar el lugar a encuestar del área de influencia de todos los focos de incendio; la primera etapa es cada anillo del Buffer y la segunda los usos del suelo. Los resultados expresan que hubo daños de tipo físico, psicológico, material, económico y otros. Además, que cuanto más cerca del foco de incendio se encontraban las personas el daño fue menos percibido. Como conclusión se cumple la hipótesis de que los vecinos del área delimitada de estudio habrían sufrido algún tipo de daño.

Global change is raising the occurrence and simultaneity of large wildfires. However, increasing the number of suppression resources is not necessarily the way to manage it and even less if suppression resource assignment is determined based on the experience of the incident commander or incident management team. This research focuses on the estimation of fire line production rate in wildfires of different size under Mediterranean conditions. Fire line production rate was defined as the expected length of fire line that can be built by a firefighting crew in a period. Their most important explanatory variables were fuel model type, attack type, fire size, working time and support of aerial resources. Fuel models with the highest fire line production rate are those corresponding to grassland. Fire line production rate in indirect attack is lower than in direct attack regardless of fuel model. Fire line production rate decreased with increasing wildfire size. Firefighter production rate was decreased by 41.79% after three hours of work, due to fatigue in stress conditions next to the fire front. Aerial support increased fire line production rate between 8.14% and 20.63%. Finally, according to the findings obtained, the most efficient crew is made up of 7-9 firefighters. The assessment of the average firefighter production rates based on easily identifiable variables from an incident command post, provides objective information for decision making about the type and number of resources required in wildfires suppression activities. An efficient allocation of suppression resources would reduce crew fatigue and increase the effectiveness of operational plans.

A capitals approach consists in considering the value of the impacts and dependencies on capital stocks (e.g., natural, human, social and produced capital) into account to inform decision-making. Traditional assessments focus on the analysis of the dependencies and impacts of one capital at time such as natural or human capital. Conversely, a multi-capital assessment involves more than one relevant capital and presents the results for each capital together. This paper presents preliminary findings on developing an Integrated Capitals Approach (ICA) for wildfire vulnerability analysing the impacts on natural assets (ecological and economic values), damages on human capital (e.g., health), and the interactions between wildfire and social capital. Although some studies have recently introduced the effect of adaptation to fire, expressed mainly as the institutional capacity of improving fuel management and firefighting, the effect of social bonding such as training, capacity building, beliefs and volunteering actions at community scale, as a mean of reducing social vulnerability, is not yet thoroughly investigated. We think that it is necessary to extend the current wildfire risk frameworks proposed in the literature by adding social capital in its plurality of forms and by integrating them with the current analysis of natural, human, and economic capital assets as a tool to mitigate wildfires vulnerabilities.

Wind speed; drag coeffcient; midflame wind; fire behavior; forest characterization

In Chile, cervical cancer is the second leading cause of death from malignancy in women. The main causal agent of cervical cancer is the human papillomavirus (HPV). Compared with the general population, sex workers (SW) are at increased risk of acquiring HPV.To analyze the prevalence and genotypes of cervical and vaginal HPV in female SW attending a Sexual Control Centre.A cross-sectional study was carried out on 97 women (19-70 years old). Two samples were taken per patient, one from exocervix and the other from vaginal walls. HPV DNA. was identified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and genotyping using specific probes for 32 types of HPV.The overall frequency of HPV was 45%, 41.2% in cervical carrier and 36.1% in vaginal carrier, 32% were co-infected, 63% of HPV were high-risk genotypes. The most frequent high-risk HPV was HPV 66 (12%), HPV 58 (9.3%), followed by HPV 16, HPV 59 and HPV 82 with the same frequency (8% each one). Thirty two (43%) of females were infected with multiple genotypes.HPV is frequent infection among SW. This is the first study in Chile on the prevalence and genotypes of HPV in sex workers.

Prescribed fire is a globally relevant fuel treatment for surface fuel management and wildfire hazard reduction. However, Mediterranean ecosystems are adapted to low and moderate fires, hence, the useful life of prescribed fires is limited. Useful life is defined as the effective rotation length of prescribed fires to mitigate fire spread based on critical surface intensity for crown combustion. In this sense, the useful life of a prescribed fire focuses on surface fuel dynamics and its potential fire behavior. In Pinus pinaster stands, the useful life can be established between 0 and 4 years. Canopy base height, time elapsed from the burning, postfire precipitation, and fine fuel moisture content during the burning were identified as the most important variables in postburn fuel dynamics. Other stand characteristics and postfire precipitation can improve the fine fuel and live fuel dynamics models. Our findings support prescribed fires as an effective fuel treatment in the medium term for forest fire prevention, according to stand characteristics and burning implementation conditions. In this sense, forest managers can use the proposed decision tree to identify the useful life of each prescribed fire based on fine fuel moisture content during burning implementation.