Controls on the spatial pattern of wildfire ignitions in Southern California

An improved understanding of the mechanisms that regulate wildfire risk at local to regional scales is needed for the design of effective fire and ecosystem management. We investigated the spatial distribution of burned area in Southern California during 1960–2009 using five different data‐driven methods: multiple linear regression, generalized additive models (GAMs), GAMs with spatial autocorrelation, non‐linear multiplicative models, and random forest models. We used each method to separately develop burned area risk maps for Southern California's two distinct wildfire regimes: Santa Ana (SA fires), which occur during high wind events mostly in autumn, and non‐Santa Ana fires (non‐SA fires), which occur mostly during the hot and dry Mediterranean‐climate summer. The different methods explained 38–63% of the spatial variance in burned area for SA fires and 21–48% for non‐SA fires. The two fire regimes had contrasting drivers, with Fosberg fire weather index, relative humidity, minimum temperature, and distance to housing most important for SA fires, and shrub cover, road density, and distance to minor and major roads most important for non‐SA fires. Our modeling framework carries implications for the strategic placement of fire suppression resources, and for prevention planning in areas facing increasing human and climate pressures.

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“…; Faivre et al. ). Roads also may serve as a barrier to fire spread, particularly for non‐Santa Ana fires (Jin et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Spatial patterns and controls on burned area for two contrasting fire regimes in Southern California

et al. 2016

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“…(iv) Owing to points (i) -(iii), the intensity of human-induced fires is usually lower [10]. (v) They tend to occur in the proximity of human settlements and infrastructures [12]. However, it is important to recognize that in many regions of the world human ignitions, whether accidental or arson, can be the cause of wildfires, which mostly share the characteristics of wildfires following non-human ignitions such as lightning.…”

Section: Fire Effects On Soils: a Brief Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire effects on soils: the human dimension

Santín¹,

Doerr²

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

180

124

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Soils are among the most valuable non-renewable resources on the Earth. They support natural vegetation and human agro-ecosystems, represent the largest terrestrial organic carbon stock, and act as stores and filters for water. Mankind has impacted on soils from its early days in many different ways, with burning being the first human perturbation at landscape scales. Fire has long been used as a tool to fertilize soils and control plant growth, but it can also substantially change vegetation, enhance soil erosion and even cause desertification of previously productive areas. Indeed fire is now regarded by some as the seventh soil-forming factor. Here we explore the effects of fire on soils as influenced by human interference. Human-induced fires have shaped our landscape for thousands of years and they are currently the most common fires in many parts of the world. We first give an overview of fire effect on soils and then focus specifically on (i) how traditional land-use practices involving fire, such as slash-and-burn or vegetation clearing, have affected and still are affecting soils; (ii) the effects of more modern uses of fire, such as fuel reduction or ecological burns, on soils; and (iii) the ongoing and potential future effects on soils of the complex interactions between human-induced land cover changes, climate warming and fire dynamics. This article is part of the themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’.

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“…Urban, forest and agricultural land uses coexist and intermix in these anthropic landscapes, and interfaces between them seem to favour HCF occurrence in those models that have taken them into consideration (63 interface out of 230 land-use variables) (Vilar del Hoyo et al 2011;Faivre et al 2014;Duane et al 2015;Mishra et al 2016;Modugno et al 2016;Rodrigues et al 2016). Configuration metrics have not been applied as extensively (only 13 variables) as composition or land-cover variables, but fire-prone landscapes often present high fragmentation (Martínez et al 2009;Ruiz-Mirazo et al 2012;Martínez-Fernández et al 2013) and non-complex shapes linked to the artificial boundaries set by humans (Henry and Yool 2004;Gralewicz et al 2012b;Costafreda-Aumedes et al 2013).…”

Section: Predictors For Long-term Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…High evapotranspiration (BadiaPerpinyà and Pallares-Barbera 2006;Xiao et al 2015) and insolation (Heat Load Index, Lozano et al 2007;Yang et al 2015) increase the probability of human-caused ignition. Annual or seasonal temperature and precipitation variables abound (Pew and Larsen 2001;Amatulli et al 2006;Prasad et al 2008;Oliveira et al 2012;Faivre et al 2014;Xiao et al 2015;Ancog et al 2016), with drought estimations (e.g. Palmer Drought Severity Index, Preisler and Westerling 2007;Miranda et al 2012) and climatic classifications in the 127 models analysed.…”

Section: Predictors For Long-term Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of land-cover change on Africa's burnt area

Grégoire

Eva

Belward

et al. 2013

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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Abstract. The increasing global concern about wildfires, mostly caused by people, has triggered the development of human-caused fire occurrence models in many countries. The premise is that better knowledge of the underlying factors is critical for many fire management purposes, such as operational decision-making in suppression and strategic prevention planning, or guidance on forest and land-use policies. However, the explanatory and predictive capacity of fire occurrence models is not yet widely applied to the management of forests, fires or emergencies. In this article, we analyse the developments in the field of human-caused fire occurrence modelling with the aim of identifying the most appropriate variables and methods for applications in forest and fire management and civil protection. We stratify our worldwide analysis by temporal dimension (short-term and long-term) and by model output (numeric or binary), and discuss management applications. An attempt to perform a meta-analysis based on published models proved limited because of non-equivalence of the metrics and units of the estimators and outcomes across studies, the diversity of models and the lack of information in published works.

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Controls on the spatial pattern of wildfire ignitions in Southern California

Cited by 63 publications

References 56 publications

Spatial patterns and controls on burned area for two contrasting fire regimes in Southern California

Spatial patterns and controls on burned area for two contrasting fire regimes in Southern California

Fire effects on soils: the human dimension

Effect of land-cover change on Africa's burnt area

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