Forest fires cause severe problems in many countries. Forest fire areas in nine European countries are investigated with respect to yearly averages, standard deviations and correlations between nations. In the region IFPS (Italy, France, Portugal and Spain), the average yearly burned area during the years 2010 to 2018 was 313.4 kha and in FGLNS (Finland, Germany, Latvia, Norway and Sweden) the corresponding area was only 7.6 kha. The correlations between the regions are strictly negative and the correlations within the regions are strictly positive.

 

Since forest fires usually do not occur in every country at the same time, there is a potential expected gain from international cooperation, where easily mobile firefighting resources such as water bombing airplanes are moved between nations. A general stochastic dynamic programming approach to adaptive moves of such resources is defined and suggested. General properties of the solution are derived. A particular version of the model is created and analytical derivations are performed. It is demonstrated that the expected objective function value, the expected present value of total costs, is a strictly increasing function of the fire correlation between nations. Adaptive moves of mobile resources between the regions IFPS and FGLNS have the advantage of negative correlations between these regions. Some adaptive moves can also be motivated within the regions even with positive correlations, thanks to the low costs of short moves.