Probability-Based Wildfire Risk Measure for Decision-Making

Abstract

Wildfire is a natural element of many ecosystems as well as a natural disaster to be prevented. Climate and land usage changes have increased the number and size of wildfires in the last few decades. In this situation, governments must be able to manage wildfire, and a risk measure can be crucial to evaluate any preventive action and to support decision-making. In this paper, a risk measure based on ignition and spread probabilities is developed modeling a forest landscape as an interconnected system of homogeneous sectors. The measure is defined as the expected value of losses due to fire, based on the probabilities of each sector burning. An efficient method based on Bayesian networks to compute the probability of fire in each sector is provided. The risk measure is suitable to support decision-making to compare preventive actions and to choose the best alternatives reducing the risk of a network. The paper is divided into three parts. First, we present the theoretical framework on which the risk measure is based, outlining some necessary properties of the fire probabilistic model as well as discussing the definition of the event ‘fire’. In the second part, we show how to avoid topological restrictions in the network and produce a computable and comprehensible wildfire risk measure. Finally, an illustrative case example is included.

Comparing contingency fire containment strategies using simulated random scenarios

“…Our study tests a conceptual modeling process to evaluate strategic contingency line construction plans and derive general rules to improve those plans. From a broader fire risk management aspect (Rodríguez‐Martínez & Vitoriano, 2020; Thompson et al, 2019), adding redundant lines into a fire suppression system would reduce the overall system risks and improve the safety and effectiveness of fire operations. While future research is still needed to improve data quality, achieve better data synchronization and improve model resolution, we believe developing a systems analysis approach and using them to support fire risk management may yield new knowledge to support better fire risk management.…”

Analyzing Wildfires and their Socio-economic Factors in Sardinia

“…Recently, in the Mediterranean countries and specially in coastal regions, wildfires have become one of the main environmental problems causing direct damage to humans and structures as well as significant economic and ecological damage ( [32], [23]). Actually, they have been considered as one of the most relevant causes of forest destruction in Mediterranean countries and some studies indicate that in the latest future there will be an increase in wildfire events due to changes in climate and land management ( [5], [22], [30]). Frequently, wildfires have been analysed focusing on the number of wildfires, giving information about the probability of occurrence as well as determining the effect of some covariates on the trend in the intensity of fire location.…”

Spatial and Temporal Wildfire Decomposition as a Tool for Assessment and Planning of an Efficient Forest Policy in Galicia (Spain)

“…The disposition of human and material resources has been studied from different perspectives and using different calculation techniques [57][58][59][60][61][62]. Most of these studies start from the concrete characteristics of the region studied, the particular circumstances of wildfires, their causes of ignition and propagation, as well as their local consequences.…”