scholarly journals An overview of LEOPARDS: The Level of Protection Analysis System

1999 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 615-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. McAlpine ◽  
K. G. Hirsch
Keyword(s):  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Primary Component ◽  
Fire Occurrence ◽  
Resource Information ◽  
Area Burned ◽  
Occurrence Data ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
Analysis System ◽  
Management Issues

The Level of Protection Analysis System (LEOPARDS) allows the structured assessment of the outcomes and costs associated with alternative fire management policies, budgets, and suppression resource mixes. Its primary component is a deterministic, spatially conscious simulation model that emulates the daily fire suppression activities of a provincial fire management agency. Inputs for the model include historical fire weather and fire occurrence data, land-use objectives and operational rules, and infrastructure and suppression resource information. The model estimates physical outcomes (e.g., response time, number of escaped fires, area burned), fiscal results (e.g., fixed and variable costs), and resource utilization information. LEOPARDS has been used to address a number of strategic fire management issues in the province of Ontario and is being assessed for use in other parts of Canada.

Location, timing and extent of wildfire vary by cause of ignition

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra D. Syphard ◽  
Jon E. Keeley
Keyword(s):  
Management Strategy ◽  
Southern California ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
The Other ◽  
Area Burned ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Distributions ◽  
Prevention Programmes ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
Fire Extent

The increasing extent of wildfires has prompted investigation into alternative fire management approaches to complement the traditional strategies of fire suppression and fuels manipulation. Wildfire prevention through ignition reduction is an approach with potential for success, but ignitions result from a variety of causes. If some ignition sources result in higher levels of area burned, then ignition prevention programmes could be optimised to target these distributions in space and time. We investigated the most common ignition causes in two southern California sub-regions, where humans are responsible for more than 95% of all fires, and asked whether these causes exhibited distinct spatial or intra-annual temporal patterns, or resulted in different extents of fire in 10–29-year periods, depending on sub-region. Different ignition causes had distinct spatial patterns and those that burned the most area tended to occur in autumn months. Both the number of fires and area burned varied according to cause of ignition, but the cause of the most numerous fires was not always the cause of the greatest area burned. In both sub-regions, power line ignitions were one of the top two causes of area burned: the other major causes were arson in one sub-region and power equipment in the other. Equipment use also caused the largest number of fires in both sub-regions. These results have important implications for understanding why, where and how ignitions are caused, and in turn, how to develop strategies to prioritise and focus fire prevention efforts. Fire extent has increased tremendously in southern California, and because most fires are caused by humans, ignition reduction offers a potentially powerful management strategy, especially if optimised to reflect the distinct spatial and temporal distributions in different ignition causes.

scholarly journals The Development and Implementation of a Human-Caused Wildland Fire Occurrence Prediction System for the Province of Ontario, Canada

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas G. Woolford ◽  
David L. Martell ◽  
Colin McFayden ◽  
Jordan Evens ◽  
Aaron Stacey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fire Management ◽  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Generalized Additive Models ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Additive Models ◽  
Fire Occurrence ◽  
Fine Scale ◽  
High Resolution Data ◽  
Linear Relationships

We describe the development and implementation of an operational human-caused wildland fire occurrence prediction (FOP) system in the Province of Ontario, Canada. A suite of supervised statistical learning models was developed using more than 50 years of high-resolution data over a 73.8 million hectare study area, partitioned into Ontario’s Northwest and Northeast Fire Management Regions. A stratified modelling approach accounts for different seasonal baselines regionally and for a set of communities in the far north. Response-dependent sampling and modelling techniques using logistic Generalized Additive Models are used to develop a fine-scale, spatio-temporal FOP system with models that include non-linear relationships with key predictors. These predictors include inter and intra-annual temporal trends, spatial trends, ecological variables, fuel moisture measures, human land use characteristics and a novel measure of human activity. The system produces fine-scale, spatially explicit maps of daily probabilistic human-caused FOP based on locally observed conditions along with point and interval predictions for the expected number of fires in each region. A simulation-based approach for generating the prediction intervals is described. Daily predictions were made available to fire management practitioners through a custom dashboard and integrated into daily regional planning to support detection and fire suppression preparedness needs.

Recent Changes in Annual Area Burned in Interior Alaska: The Impact of Fire Management

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. P. Calef ◽  
A. Varvak ◽  
A. D. McGuire ◽  
F. S. Chapin ◽  
K. B. Reinhold
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Temporal Analysis ◽  
Fire Service ◽  
Area Burned ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The Alaskan boreal forest is characterized by frequent extensive wildfires whose spatial extent has been mapped for the past 70 years. Simple predictions based on this record indicate that area burned will increase as a response to climate warming in Alaska. However, two additional factors have affected the area burned in this time record: the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) switched from cool and moist to warm and dry in the late 1970s and the Alaska Fire Service instituted a fire suppression policy in the late 1980s. In this paper a geographic information system (GIS) is used in combination with statistical analyses to reevaluate the changes in area burned through time in Alaska considering both the influence of the PDO and fire management. The authors found that the area burned has increased since the PDO switch and that fire management drastically decreased the area burned in highly suppressed zones. However, the temporal analysis of this study shows that the area burned is increasing more rapidly in suppressed zones than in the unsuppressed zone since the late 1980s. These results indicate that fire policies as well as regional climate patterns are important as large-scale controls on fires over time and across the Alaskan boreal forest.

Reply—A re-examination of the effects of fire suppression in the boreal forest

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 1467-1480 ◽  
Author(s):  
P C Ward ◽  
A G Tithecott ◽  
B M Wotton
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Forest Disturbance ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Disturbance ◽  
Fire Size ◽  
Area Burned ◽  
Return Interval ◽  
The Past ◽  
Northwestern Ontario

Ward and Tithecott (P.C. Ward and A.G. Tithecott. 1993. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Aviation, Flood and Fire Management Branch, Publ. 305) presented data that indicated fire suppression activities in Ontario led to reductions in average annual area burned and greater numbers of small fires, compared with what would have been observed in the absence of suppression. Miyanishi and Johnson (K. Miyanishi and E.A. Johnson. 2001. Can. J. For. Res. 31: 1462–1466) have questioned aspects of that report, suggesting that the evidence does not demonstrate that suppression influences fire size or frequency. Fire-history studies in Ontario's forests and recent fire disturbance records do show that the fire-return interval has lengthened considerably in Ontario's protected forest since pre-suppression times. Analysis of forest inventory age-class distributions also reflect a reduction in overall forest disturbance rates in the past 40 years. Average annual burn fractions (ABF) calculated for protected and unprotected forests in northwestern Ontario for the period 1976-2000 show an ABF of 1.11% in the unprotected forest and only 0.34% in the protected forest. There is clear evidence that fire suppression in Ontario contains many fires at small sizes that would have otherwise grown to larger sizes, and reduces the overall average annual area burned in the protected forest.

scholarly journals ENSO modulates wildfire activity in China

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyan Fang ◽  
Qichao Yao ◽  
Zhengtang Guo ◽  
Ben Zheng ◽  
Jianhua Du ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Monitoring ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Plant Tissues ◽  
Fire Occurrence ◽  
Subtropical China ◽  
Southeastern China ◽  
Temperature Ranges ◽  
Low Precipitation

AbstractChina is a key region for understanding fire activity and the drivers of its variability under strict fire suppression policies. Here, we present a detailed fire occurrence dataset for China, the Wildfire Atlas of China (WFAC; 2005–2018), based on continuous monitoring from multiple satellites and calibrated against field observations. We find that wildfires across China mostly occur in the winter season from January to April and those fire occurrences generally show a decreasing trend after reaching a peak in 2007. Most wildfires (84%) occur in subtropical China, with two distinct clusters in its southwestern and southeastern parts. In southeastern China, wildfires are mainly promoted by low precipitation and high diurnal temperature ranges, the combination of which dries out plant tissue and fuel. In southwestern China, wildfires are mainly promoted by warm conditions that enhance evaporation from litter and dormant plant tissues. We further find a fire occurrence dipole between southwestern and southeastern China that is modulated by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

The importance of grasstrees (Xanthorrhoea preissii) as habitat for mardo (Antechinus flavipes leucogaster) during post-fire recovery

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (8) ◽  
pp. 640 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marnie L. Swinburn ◽  
Patricia A. Fleming ◽  
Michael D. Craig ◽  
Andrew H. Grigg ◽  
Mark J. Garkaklis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fire Management ◽  
Nest Site ◽  
Radio Telemetry ◽  
Important Resource ◽  
Nest Sites ◽  
Single Feature ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
Nesting Resources ◽  
Selection For ◽  
The One

Grasstrees (Xanthorrhoea) are an important structural component of many Australian ecosystems and also an important resource for many fauna species. Grasstrees have distinctive morphologies, with a crown of long thin leaves and skirts, the latter of which are accumulated dead leaves; both are incinerated by fire. This study determined the morphological features of Xanthorrhoea preissii, which change in response to fire from 6 months to 21 years post-burn. In addition, using radio-telemetry and spool-tracking, we determined that grasstrees are utilised as foraging and nesting resources for mardos (Antechinus flavipes leucogaster (Gray, 1841), Marsupialia: Dasyuridae). Recently burnt grasstrees (6 months post-burn) appeared not to be used by mardos at all. We found few mardos in these recently burnt sites, and the one individual we managed to track for 126 m utilised only a single grasstree: a 2-m-tall multiple-crowned grasstree that had escaped the fire was used as a nest site. For sites 5 years post-burn, mardos selectively utilised grasstrees with larger crown areas and those with a greater number of crowns compared with a random sample of available trees. At the 14-year post-burn sites, mardos still demonstrated some selection for grasstrees, although no specific single feature could be determined as most significant. We recorded humidity and temperature buffering effects in association with post-burn accumulation of grasstree skirt material and found that even dead grasstree ‘logs’ were an important resource for nests. We conclude that mardos utilise both live and dead grasstrees for foraging and nest sites, possibly owing to the availability of dense cover, a buffered microclimate, and potentially also food resources. Fire-management policies that promote habitat heterogeneity and retain several intact-skirted grasstrees within the landscape are likely to benefit mardos.

scholarly journals Spatially varying constraints of human-caused fire occurrence in British Columbia, Canada

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip E. Camp ◽  
Meg A. Krawchuk
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Spatial Patterns ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Occurrence ◽  
Explanatory Variables ◽  
Human Footprint ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Key Drivers ◽  
Spatially Varying

Human-caused wildfires are controlled by human and natural influences, and determining their key drivers is critical for understanding spatial patterns of wildfire and implementing effective fire management. We examined an array of explanatory variables that account for spatial controls of human-caused fire occurrence from 1990 to 2013 among six ecosystem zones that vary in human footprint and environmental characteristics in British Columbia, Canada. We found that long-term patterns of human-caused fire in ecosystem zones with a larger human footprint were strongly controlled by biophysical variables explaining conditions conducive to burning, whereas fire occurrence in remote ecosystem zones was controlled by various metrics of human activity. A metric representing the wildland–urban interface was a key factor explaining human-caused fire occurrence regardless of ecosystem zone. Our results contribute to the growing body of research on the varying constraints of spatial patterns of fire occurrence by explicitly examining human-caused fire and the heterogeneity of constraints based on human development.

scholarly journals Modeling and Mapping Forest Fire Occurrence from Aboveground Carbon Density in Mexico

Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Ivan Briones-Herrera ◽  
Daniel José Vega-Nieva ◽  
Norma Angélica Monjarás-Vega ◽  
Favian Flores-Medina ◽  
Pablito Marcelo Lopez-Serrano ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Fires ◽  
Aboveground Biomass ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Weibull Model ◽  
Management Decision ◽  
Fire Occurrence ◽  
Carbon Density ◽  
Aboveground Carbon ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
Aboveground Carbon Density

Understanding the spatial patterns of fire occurrence is key for improved forest fires management, particularly under global change scenarios. Very few studies have attempted to relate satellite-based aboveground biomass maps of moderate spatial resolution to spatial fire occurrence under a variety of climatic and vegetation conditions. This study focuses on modeling and mapping fire occurrence based on fire suppression data from 2005–2015 from aboveground biomass—expressed as aboveground carbon density (AGCD)—for the main ecoregions in Mexico. Our results showed that at each ecoregion, unimodal or humped relationships were found between AGCD and fire occurrence, which might be explained by varying constraints of fuel and climate limitation to fire activity. Weibull equations successfully fitted the fire occurrence distributions from AGCD, with the lowest fit for the desert shrub-dominated north region that had the lowest number of observed fires. The models for predicting fire occurrence from AGCD were significantly different by region, with the exception of the temperate forest in the northwest and northeast regions that could be modeled with a single Weibull model. Our results suggest that AGCD could be used to estimate spatial fire occurrence maps; those estimates could be integrated into operational GIS tools for assistance in fire danger mapping and fire and fuel management decision-making. Further investigation of anthropogenic drivers of fire occurrence and fuel characteristics should be considered for improving the operational spatial planning of fire management. The modeling strategy presented here could be replicated in other countries or regions, based on remote-sensed measurements of aboveground biomass and fire activity or fire suppression records.

From fire suppression to fire management: Advances and resistances to changes in fire policy in the savannas of Brazil and Venezuela

2018 ◽  
Vol 185 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludivine Eloy ◽  
Bibiana A. Bilbao ◽  
Jayalaxshmi Mistry ◽  
Isabel B. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Policy ◽  
In Fire

Implications of changing climate for global wildland fire

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike D. Flannigan ◽  
Meg A. Krawchuk ◽  
William J. de Groot ◽  
B. Mike Wotton ◽  
Lynn M. Gowman
Keyword(s):  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Fire Severity ◽  
Global Studies ◽  
Future Trends ◽  
Fire Occurrence ◽  
General Increase ◽  
Area Burned ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
Linear Interactions

Wildland fire is a global phenomenon, and a result of interactions between climate–weather, fuels and people. Our climate is changing rapidly primarily through the release of greenhouse gases that may have profound and possibly unexpected impacts on global fire activity. The present paper reviews the current understanding of what the future may bring with respect to wildland fire and discusses future options for research and management. To date, research suggests a general increase in area burned and fire occurrence but there is a lot of spatial variability, with some areas of no change or even decreases in area burned and occurrence. Fire seasons are lengthening for temperate and boreal regions and this trend should continue in a warmer world. Future trends of fire severity and intensity are difficult to determine owing to the complex and non-linear interactions between weather, vegetation and people. Improved fire data are required along with continued global studies that dynamically include weather, vegetation, people, and other disturbances. Lastly, we need more research on the role of policy, practices and human behaviour because most of the global fire activity is directly attributable to people.

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