Predicting Wildfires

Andrews, Patricia; Finney, Mark A.; Fischetti, Mark

doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0807-46

Cited by 42 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…These tools output spatially explicit burn probability information, a crucial input to strategic fire and fuels management planning (Miller et al 2008). Thus, managers are able, for example, to project near-term fire behavior using real-time weather information to inform suppression decision making (Andrews et al 2007) or to examine how simulated wildfire class (flame length > 12 feet) was not predicted to occur in any FPU and is, therefore, excluded from the legend behavior changes in response to fuel management activities (e.g., Kim et al 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advancing effects analysis for integrated, large-scale wildfire risk assessment

Thompson

Calkin

Gilbertson-Day

et al. 2010

Environ Monit Assess

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In this article, we describe the design and development of a quantitative, geospatial risk assessment tool intended to facilitate monitoring trends in wildfire risk over time and to provide information useful in prioritizing fuels treatments and mitigation measures. The research effort is designed to develop, from a strategic view, a first approximation of how both fire likelihood and intensity influence risk to social, economic, and ecological values at regional and national scales. Three main components are required to generate wildfire risk outputs: (1) burn probability maps generated from wildfire simulations, (2) spatially identified highly valued resources (HVRs), and (3) response functions that describe the effects of fire (beneficial or detrimental) on the HVR. Analyzing fire effects has to date presented a major challenge to integrated risk assessments, due to a limited understanding of the type and magnitude of changes wrought by wildfire to ecological and other nonmarket values. This work advances wildfire effects analysis, recognizing knowledge uncertainty and appropriately managing it through the use of an expert systems approach. Specifically, this work entailed consultation with 10 fire and fuels program management officials from federal agencies with fire management responsibilities in order to define quantitative resource response relationships as a function of fire intensity. Here, we demonstrate a proof-of-concept application of the wildland fire risk assessment tool, using the state of Oregon as a case study.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advancing effects analysis for integrated, large-scale wildfire risk assessment

Thompson

Calkin

Gilbertson-Day

et al. 2010

Environ Monit Assess

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“…The limitation of resources and the requirement for quick responses demand accurate prediction of where fires will occur. Employing fire occurrence records within empirical models is essential to quantify the characteristics of fire activities to support planning and decision-making (Andrews & Finney 2007). These models can be used to identify fireprone areas and help forest managers target suppression efforts (Pew & Larsen 2001;Syphard et al 2008;Romero-Calcerrada et al 2010;Wang & Anderson 2010;Renard et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling spatial patterns of wildfire occurrence in South-Eastern Australia

Zhou

Lim

Sharples

2016

Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk

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This paper describes the development and validation of spatial models for wildfire occurrence at a broad landscape scale. The hotspots databases from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and logistic regression models are investigated for the comprehensive understanding of environmental and socioeconomic determinants regulating the spatial distribution of wildfires over the 11-year period 2003À2013. The probability of occurrence of at least one fire on a 1 km 2 grid cell in a 1,030,000 km 2 region located in South-Eastern Australia is studied for the prediction of future fire occurrence. Our research shows that wildfires are most likely to occur in mountainous areas, forests, savannas and lands with high vegetation coverage, and are less likely to occur on grasslands and shrublands. Wildfires also tend to occur in areas near human infrastructures. Environmental variables are strong individual predictors of fire occurrence while socioeconomic variables contribute more to the final model. The influence of environmental and socioeconomic conditions on wildfire occurrence and the spatial patterns of wildfires identified in this study can assist fire managers in implementing appropriate management actions in South-Eastern Australia. This paper also demonstrates the potential of applying the MODIS active fire product in wildfire occurrence studies.

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“…The analysis of historical fire and weather records, for example, is currently integral to national fire danger rating applications (Andrews and Bradshaw, 1997;Bradshaw and McCormick, 2000;Andrews et al, 2007), fire-potential forecast models (Andrews et al, 2007), and several widely used geospatial fire modeling systems (Stratton, 2006;e.g., Sanborn, 2009;Finney et al, 2011). These operational systems are relied upon to generate consistent national data for risk assessment, planning, budget formulation, and decision support at multiple scales (Buckley et al, 2006;Hardy and Hardy, 2007;Calkin et al, 2010;Wolf and Buckley, 2010;Finney et al, 2011;Noonan-Wright et al, 2011;Thompson et al, 2011;Miller and Ager, 2012;Scott et al, 2012;WRSC, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A spatial database of wildfires in the United States, 1992-2011

Short

2014

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

139

114

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Abstract. The statistical analysis of wildfire activity is a critical component of national wildfire planning, operations, and research in the United States (US). However, there are multiple federal, state, and local entities with wildfire protection and reporting responsibilities in the US, and no single, unified system of wildfire record keeping exists. To conduct even the most rudimentary interagency analyses of wildfire numbers and area burned from the authoritative systems of record, one must harvest records from dozens of disparate databases with inconsistent information content. The onus is then on the user to check for and purge redundant records of the same fire (i.e., multijurisdictional incidents with responses reported by several agencies or departments) after pooling data from different sources. Here we describe our efforts to acquire, standardize, error-check, compile, scrub, and evaluate the completeness of US federal, state, and local wildfire records from 1992-2011 for the national, interagency Fire Program Analysis (FPA) application. The resulting FPA Fire-Occurrence Database (FPA FOD) includes nearly 1.6 million records from the 20 yr period, with values for at least the following core data elements: location, at least as precise as a Public Land Survey System section (2.6 km 2 grid), discovery date, and final fire size. The FPA FOD is publicly available from the Research Data Archive of the US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (doi:10.2737/RDS-2013-0009). While necessarily incomplete in some aspects, the database is intended to facilitate fairly high-resolution geospatial analysis of US wildfire activity over the past two decades, based on available information from the authoritative systems of record.

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Predicting Wildfires

Cited by 42 publications

References 0 publications

Advancing effects analysis for integrated, large-scale wildfire risk assessment

Advancing effects analysis for integrated, large-scale wildfire risk assessment

Modelling spatial patterns of wildfire occurrence in South-Eastern Australia

A spatial database of wildfires in the United States, 1992-2011

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