Automated prediction of extreme fire weather from synoptic patterns in northern Alberta, Canada

Lagerquist, Ryan; Flannigan, Mike D.; Wang, Xianli; Marshall, Ginny

doi:10.1139/cjfr-2017-0063

Cited by 34 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Wildfires provide numerous examples of modelling problems where the explicit form of the relationship between key variables is not known, thus making them ideal subjects for the use of ANNs (Vasilakos et al, 2009). The use of neural nets in wildfire research dates back over 20 years (Vega-Garcia et al, 1996) and is now widely applied along with other machine learning approaches on topics including fire weather (Lagerquist et al, 2017), fire severity mapping (Harris and Taylor, 2017;Collins et al, 2018) and wildfire prediction (Dutta et al, 2013;Gray et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Proximal Drivers of Large Fires: A Pyrogeographic Study

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Variations in global patterns of burning and fire regimes are relatively well measured, however, the degree of influence of the complex suite of biophysical and human drivers of fire remains controversial and incompletely understood. Such an understanding is required in order to support current fire management and to predict the future trajectory of global fire patterns in response to changes in these determinants. In this study we explore and compare the effects of four fundamental controls on fire, namely the production of biomass, its drying, the influence of weather on the spread of fire and sources of ignition. Our study area is southern Australia, where fire is currently limited by either fuel production or fuel dryness. As in most fire-prone environments, the majority of annual burned area is due to a relatively small number of large fires. We train and test an Artificial Neural Network's ability to predict spatial patterns in the probability of large fires (>1,250 ha) in forests and grasslands as a function of proxies of the four major controls on fire activity. Fuel load is represented by predicted forested biomass and remotely sensed grass biomass, drying is represented by fraction of the time monthly potential evapotranspiration exceeds precipitation, weather is represented by the frequency of severe fire weather conditions and ignitions are represented by the average annual density of reported ignitions. The response of fire to these drivers is often non-linear. Our results suggest that fuel management will have limited capacity to alter future fire occurrence unless it yields landscape-scale changes in fuel amount, and that shifts between, rather than within, vegetation community types may be more important. We also find that increased frequency of severe fire weather could increase the likelihood of large fires in forests but decrease it in grasslands. These results have the potential to support long-term strategic planning and risk assessment by fire management agencies.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Proximal Drivers of Large Fires: A Pyrogeographic Study

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, there has been an increased use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML-AI) techniques in wildfire science covering a range of topics. Examples include extreme fire weather prediction (Lagerquist et al 2017), ensemble lightning prediction modelling (Blouin et al 2016), and automated burn scar mapping (Cao et al 2009). Other advancements in fire science worth mentioning include improved numerical weather and fire growth models.…”

Section: Looking To the Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

Scientists’ warning on wildfire — a Canadian perspective

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recently, the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: a Second Notice was issued in response to ongoing and largely unabated environmental degradation due to anthropogenic activities. In the warning, humanity is urged to practice more environmentally sustainable alternatives to business as usual to avoid potentially catastrophic outcomes. Following the success of their warning, the Alliance of World Scientists called for discipline-specific follow-up papers. This paper is an answer to that call for the topic of wildland fire. Across much of Canada and the world, wildfires are anticipated to increase in severity and frequency in response to anthropogenic activities. The world scientists’ second warning provides the opportunity for wildland fire researchers to raise the profile of the potential impacts that anthropogenic activities are likely to have on future fire regimes and, in return, what impacts future fire regimes may have on humanity. We discuss how wildfire is related to several issues of concern raised in the world scientists’ second warning, including climate change, human population growth, biodiversity and forests, and freshwater availability. Furthermore, we touch on the potential future health impacts and challenges to wildfire suppression and management in Canada. In essence, our wildfire scientists’ warning to humanity is that we, as a society, will have to learn to live with more fire on the landscape. We provide some recommendations on how we might move forward to prepare for and adapt to future wildfire regimes in Canada. Although this paper is primarily Canadian in focus, the concepts and information herein also draw from international examples and are of relevance globally.

show abstract

“…Wildfires have increased in recent decades in many regions of the world due to climate change and human factors (Abatzoglou & Williams, 2016;Doerr & Santín, 2016;Flannigan et al, 2009;Gill & Stephens, 2009;Schoennagel et al, 2017;Westerling et al, 2006), leading to severe ecological, environmental, social, and economic consequences (Liu et al, 2014;Moritz et al, 2014;Nagy et al, 2018;Steelman, 2016). As a result, the demands for improving the capacity and accuracy of fire predictions have received increasing attention globally (Lagerquist et al, 2017;Turco et al, 2018). Identifying the atmospheric circulation patterns associated with wildfires is of great value for meeting the demands.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These patterns are often related to prominent high pressure and ridge systems (Pereira et al, 2005;Peterson et al, 2010). For example, the high/low burned area years coincide with the positive/negative 500-hPa geopotential height (Z500) anomalies in subarctic Canada and Alaska (Fauria & Johnson, 2006;Hayasaka et al, 2016;Lagerquist et al, 2017;Skinner et al, 1999). The enhanced regional ridge and low atmospheric moisture are associated with high fire risks along the western coast of the United States (Nauslar et al, 2018;Trouet et al, 2009;Wise, 2016) and in southern Europe (Amraoui et al, 2013(Amraoui et al, , 2015Founda & Giannakopoulos, 2009;Papadopoulos et al, 2014;Paschalidou & Kassomenos, 2016;Ruffault et al, 2017), the two regions with a Mediterranean climate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric Circulation Patterns Associated With Wildfires in the Monsoon Regions of China

Zhao

Liu

2019

Geophysical Research Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Major atmospheric circulation patterns for wildfires have been identified in regions with boreal, Mediterranean, and semiarid climates. This study investigates such patterns in the monsoon regions of China, where the climate is controlled by multiple atmospheric systems and wildfires have large spatial variability. We identified three patterns. The first pattern was characterized by a high‐pressure ridge in northeast China and contributed to wildfires by creating warmer and drier conditions. The second, meridional pattern contributed to wildfires in north, central, and south China by increasing dry air transport. The third, zonal pattern had a weaker westerly ridge and trough and contributed to wildfires in southwest China by decreasing the transport from westerly systems. We showed that a circulation index defined as the pressure difference between the positive and negative centers of fire‐pressure correlations had higher monthly fire prediction skills for large fire occurrences than local weather.

show abstract

Automated prediction of extreme fire weather from synoptic patterns in northern Alberta, Canada

Cited by 34 publications

References 50 publications

The Proximal Drivers of Large Fires: A Pyrogeographic Study

The Proximal Drivers of Large Fires: A Pyrogeographic Study

Scientists’ warning on wildfire — a Canadian perspective

Atmospheric Circulation Patterns Associated With Wildfires in the Monsoon Regions of China

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About