Portugal has been affected by large wildfires causing huge
losses, not only environmental, but also economic and social
losses. To face this risk, the portuguese government, through
the National Forest Authority (AFN), decided, a few years ago,
to create technical offices allocated to local governments
which, among other skills, must prepare Municipal Plans for
Forest Fire Protection and Operational Response. In order to
support the elaboration of these documents, the AFN provided
technical guides with a methodology for calculating and mapping
the Forest Fire Hazard and Risk. Moreover, tutorials have been
offered to follow this methodology, using Proprietary Software.
However, the acquisition and licensing costs of that software
are unaffordable for most of the smaller local administrations
and so, it was decided to create and make available a guide with
a methodology for developing Hazard and Risk cartography using
only Free and Open Source Software . It was proposed to use the
following set of software: QGI