4.2.1. Socio-Economic Impacts 
Social survey conducted indicated that bushfires have brought 
untold hardships to individuals or sometimes a whole 
community/household either in the form of lost of lives or 
property. There are numerous cases of part or whole 
communities being raised down by fires (Fig.2). These fires 
sometimes burn maize, cassava and rice farms, cashew, mango 
and other tree plantations. Harvested farm produce in silos on 
the farms or at home are sometimes affected by spill over 
wildfires. As shown in Fig.2, the number of reported cases of 
fire outbreaks, number of affected victims and households has 
generally been on the increase since 2002. Estimates of property 
lost in major wildfires ranges into several thousands or millions 
of Ghana cedis. Human lives and that of domestic animals are 
sometimes lost in these fires. Electrical poles and other 
installations are sometimes burnt in these fires disrupting power 
supply to the communities. The disruption in electricity supply 
negatively affects the socio-economic activities of residents 
engaged in the sale of food, meat, fish, beverage and drinks as 
their stock go bad and has to be discarded at a great cost to them 
because their businesses are not insured. Also domestic food is 
destroyed. Other small scale artisanal industries such as 
welding are affected. The local people said it is hard to put a 
monetary figure on the loss of income associated with this 
annual bush fire disasters because they are small scale 
businesses and do not keep records of sales, but admitted that 
the financial burden has been enormous. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
      
  
  
  
  
800 
700 
600 
500 
400 
300 iit No. of Cases 
200 8i No. of Affected 
Households 
100 No. of Affected 
o 4j X, Victims 
2002....2003...2004...2005 
  
Fig. 2: Statistics on Bush Fire Disaster Records from 2002-2005 
Source: NADMO - Krachi District, 2006 
Operations of health facilities are also retarded when the 
power supply is disrupted by burnt electric poles which have 
great implication on health delivery. When houses are burnt, 
victims are rendered homeless and their household properties 
destroyed. Families are often accommodated by relatives, 
friends, tents or in public places such as schools/churches. 
Affected victims indicated that they are often traumatised and 
psychologically disturbed by these unfortunate events. Due to 
the cold weather of the harmattan winds of the season, families 
who are accommodated at public places are mostly exposed to 
health hazards such as flu and pneumonia because they have to 
sleep on bare floors which are sometimes not cemented and 
dusty. The Government through the National Disaster and 
42 
Management Organization and the District Assembly spends 
huge sums of money on relief items (e.g. food, sleeping mats, 
blankets, mattresses, buckets, cooking utensils etc) for such 
people and in rehabilitating the communities by assisting with 
building materials such as cement and roofing sheets when 
these disasters occur. 
4.2.3. Environmental impacts of Bushfires: Land cover 
Change & Bio-diversity Lost. 
The environmental consequences of these extensive fire 
damages include the burning of plants resulting in the reduction 
of plant cover which affects the habitat of wild life, burning of 
tree plantations, and the destruction of farms. 
  
Fig.3: NBR of Pre-fire Landsat ETM+ 2002 
Figs.3 and 4 show the NBR images of 2002 and 2003. In pre- 
fire images, vegetated areas have values greater than zero and 
areas of bare ground or rock have values less than zero (Miller 
and Yool, 2002). However, in fig.3 much of the greens which 
are associated with negative values are cloud cover. The real 
NBR values ranges from 0.04 to 0.62. In post-fire images, 
increasing fire severity is associated with decreasing values 
(Miller and Yool, 2002). As shown in Fig.4, except at the 
eastern corridor from Dambai to Pui Katanga fire severity is 
intense within the locality with intensity increasing from -0.02 
to -0.78. Negative values of dNBR indicate a positive 
vegetation response (growth) and positive values indicate a 
negative vegetation response (mortality) (Eidenshink et al, 
2007). 
Generally, the whole area studied indicates a reduction in 
vegetative cover after bush fire events in 2003 with values 
ranging from 0.04 to 1.04 (Fig.5). Areas of re-growth in 
vegetation are concentrated in the eastern part of the District 
which has three forest reserves; Chair River, Asuokoko River 
and Kabo River Forest Reserves. These areas are under the 
protection of Ghana Forestry and Wildlife Services Division 
and this account for the growth in vegetation of this section of 
the area. 
  
Fig.5: A« 
Studies 
200°C ar 
availabili 
temperatı 
complete 
exchange 
nutrients. 
plant stal