Negative Binomial Distribution to Explain the Domestic Fire Incidence in Nepal

Background: Fire disaster is one of the most destructive disasters. According to global dataset of Sendai Framework, domestic fire incidence was 9.9% up to 2019. In Nepal, 62% fire incidence was reported during 2017 and 2018. However, many studies have been conducted on fire incidence, few of them are based on domestic fire incidence. Objective: To find the descriptive statistics of fire occurrences and fire fatalities, and to identify the probability distributions that best fit the data of fire occurrences observed in three ecological regions as well as overall in Nepal. Material and Methods: The data of fire incidences from May 2011 to April 2021 were retrieved from Nepal Disaster Risk Reduction Portal, Government of Nepal. At first, a statistical software "Mathwave EasyFit" of 30 days trial version was used to identify the candidate probability models. Further, the best probability model was determined after testing the goodness of fit of the candidate models by using graphical tools-histogram and theoretical densities, empirical and theoretical CDFs, Q-Q plot and P-P plot; and mathematical tools-maximum likelihood, Akaike Information Criteria and Bayesian Information Criteria by using the package “fitdistrplus” of software R version 4.1.1. Results: On an average, 135 fire incidences per month were occurred in Nepal. However, the Terai faced the highest monthly fire incidences compared to the Hill and the Mountain, it has less fatality per 100 fire incidence followed by the Hill and the Mountain. Descriptive statistics reveals that fire occurrences are moderate during November to February and high in March and April. The fire incidences were reported high during spring and winter and low during summer and autumn season which reveals that fire incidence might be related with the precipitation and temperature. The sample data was run in "Mathwave EasyFit" software which suggested Poisson, geometric and negative binomial distribution as candidate probability models. The goodness of fit of these models were further tested by graphical as well as mathematical tools where negative binomial distribution was found to be best among the candidate models for the data set. Conclusion: Incidence of fire disasters varies by ecological regions as well as by seasons. It is low in the Mountain region and during Monsoon/rainy season. Negative binomial distribution fits the best to monthly data of fire incidence in Nepal.

Long-Term Impact of Transhumance Pastoralism and Associated Disturbances in High-Altitude Forests of Indian Western Himalaya

The Himalayan Mountains are geodynamical important, featuring a wide climatic range with a rich diversity of flora, fauna, human communities, culture, and social set-up. In recent decades, due to constant anthropogenic pressure and considerable changes witnessed in the climate of the region, species of this region are threatened. Here, we assessed the impact of nomadic settlement and associated disturbances on plant species composition, diversity parameters, ecosystem properties, and fire incidence in high-altitude forests of Western Himalaya, India. Based on the distance between nomadic settlement location and forest, we classified forest as near nomadic settlement (NNS) or away nomadic settlement (ANS) forest types. We found a significant variation in plant species composition between forest types. Three species, namely, Sibbaldia cuneata, Poa annua, and Abies pindrow, contribute 25% of the cumulative variation in plant species composition. Studying live plants, we found a significant difference only for density, in which ANS had a higher average density than NNS. Considering dead plants, we found a significant difference in all nine plant-related parameters evaluated between sites. NNS had a higher value of all parameters evaluated, except for height, which was higher in ANS sites. ANS forest type show 1.3 times more average carbon stock (160.39 ± 59.03 MgCha−1; mean ± SD) than NNS forest type (120.40 ± 51.74 MgCha−1). We found a significant difference in plant diversity evaluated between forest types. ANS had higher values of Margalef and Fisher diversity but lower values of evenness. We found that NSS had significantly higher values of fire incidences, whereas ANS has a higher normalized differential vegetation index and enhanced vegetation index. Overall, our study showed that species composition, diversity, and fire incidence are strongly impacted due to nomadic settlements. These findings are paramount for designing appropriate livelihood options for indigenous communities and management policies of the long-term forest harvest to achieve global goals and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration targets (2021–2030) to protect the sustainable development of forest mountainous regions.

Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Fire Outbreaks in Markets of Kano Metropolis, Kano State, Nigeria.

Recurrent fire outbreaks in market places have been a major threat to commercial activities within Kano metropolis. This necessitated the need to examine the spatio-temporal pattern of the outbreaks in relation to the nature and importance of the markets with a view to mitigating its consequences for sustainable commercial development. Fire incidence records (1974-2017) comprising of incidence dates, time, year, location, causes and consequences was obtained from the Kano State Fire Service Department. Electronic and GPS surveying was conducted to determine the absolute locations for spatial and temporal analyses. The result from spatial analysis indicated a clustered pattern of fire outbreaks within the major markets with Nearest Neighbor Ratio of 0.179. Temporally, there were more fire incidence recurrence (about 20.9%) and property damage between 2007and 2017, thereby making it the most devastating period of market fire outbreaks in Kano. Based on the nature of markets, the overall result depicted that mixed markets and single commodity market experienced 76.5% and 23.5% fire incidence respectively. This was attributed to the extent of commercial activities, the use of electricity, and the flammability of the products. The study thus recommends fire safety education and fire prevention practices throughout the markets for risk reduction and sustainable economic development. Les incendies récurrents sur les marchés ont constitué une menace majeure pour les activités commerciales dans la métropole de Kano. Cela a nécessité la nécessité d'examiner le schéma spatio-temporel des incendies en relation avec la nature et l'importance des marchés en vue d'atténuer ses conséquences sur le développement commercial durable. Les dossiers des incendies (1974-2017) y compris les dates, l'heure, l'année, le lieu, les causes et les conséquences des incendies ont été obtenus auprès du service d'incendie de l'État de Kano. Des levés électroniques et GPS ont été effectués pour déterminer les emplacements absolus pour les analyses spatiales et temporelles. Le résultat de l'analyse spatiale a indiqué un modèle groupé d'incendies dans les principaux marchés avec une proportion de voisin le plus proche de 0,179. Temporellement, il y a eu plus de récurrence d'incendie (environ 20,9%) et de dommages matériels entre 2007 et 2017, ce qui fait de cette période, la plus dévastatrice d'incendies de marché à Kano. Sur la base de la nature des marchés, le résultat global a montré que les marchés à produits mixtes et le marché a produit unique ont connu respectivement 76,5% et 23,5% des incendies. Cela a été attribué à l'étendue des activités commerciales, à l'utilisation de l'électricité et à l'inflammabilité des produits. L'étude recommande ainsi une éducation à la sécurité incendie et des pratiques de prévention des incendies sur l'ensemble des marchés pour la réduction des risques et le développement économique durable. Mots clés : Arpentage GPS, Marchés à produits mixtes, proportion de voisin le plus proche, marchés durables.

Analysis and interpretation of forest fire data of Sikkim

Forest ecosystems are depleting and heading towards degradation which would adversely affect the world's socio-economic harmony. Various disasters disturb the cordial relationship of the flora and fauna and impose imbalance in the ecology as a whole; forest fire is one of its kind. India has witnessed a 125% rise in forest fire occurrences between the years 2015 and 2017. This paper presents a study of various factors and the analysis of forest fire in Sikkim. The period of 10 years, forest fire incidences, i.e., from the year 2004 to the year 2014 have been considered for the study. The forest fire data was collected from Forest and Environment Department, Government of Sikkim, and preliminary processing was performed to check for anomalies. The study observed that there has been an increased forest fire incidence over the years and highest being in the year 2009. These fire incidences have damaged a total area of 5,047.16 ha of land damaging various flora and fauna. It was observed that the maximum forest fire cases are below an altitude of 1500m, during winter months (December to February extending to March) and in sub-tropical Sal (Shorea robusta) forest. West district of Sikkim recorded the highest number of forest fire incidences and area covered followed by south and east districts; the north district was least affected. As per the visual interpretation of forest fire incidence data and literature review, the main factors responsible for forest fire in Sikkim are low rainfall, dry winter season, and type of vegetation. Also, a linear regression was performed between weather factors like average temperature (°C), relative humidity (%), and wind velocity (Km/h) on incidences of forest fire between the year 2009-2014 (n=389). It was found that the average temperature (r=0.37, Slope=9.59 and SD= ±12.00) and relative humidity (r=-0.6, Slope=-4.52, and SD=±2.68) plays a moderate linear relationship in influencing the incidences of forest fires. However, wind velocity showed almost a flat curve indicating its minimal role in influencing forest fire incidences. Parameter modelling and preparation of forest fire risk zone map would be an effective tool in preventing and managing forest fire in Sikkim.

Drought and wildfires in Portugal at the county scale

<p>Weather and climate extreme events contribute to the increase of wildfire risk. A recent study carried out in Mainland Portugal for the period 1981 – 2017, using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) to assess drought conditions, revealed that drought affects 70% of the months and a very strong relationship between the occurrence of drought and the spatio-temporal distribution of extreme wildfires (> 5,000 ha). These results raised additional scientific questions that need to be answered, such as: Is the relationship between droughts and fires equally strong for wildfires of smaller size? The study was carried out at the country level, but what are the regions where the relationship is more and less strong? Therefore the objective of this study is to assess the influence of drought on fire incidence, considering all wildfires or classes of wildfire sizes and in each of the 278 counties of Continental Portugal characterized by different features (landscape, weather/climate, drought and fire incidence). This study benefits from the existence of long and reliable meteorological and wildfire datasets. The methodology comprises cluster analysis, contingency tables, accuracy metrics, statistical measures of association to test the independence and help find interactions between these two natural hazards. Main results include: (i) the characterization of spatio-temporal distribution of drought number, duration, severity, intensity, extension; (ii) wildfire space-time distribution within drought periods and affected area; and, (iii) the assessment of the relationship between droughts and wildfires at county scale. The authors believe that the findings of this study are very useful for the definition of adaptation and mitigation strategies for the impacts of droughts in wildfire occurrence and to assess the climatic wildfire hazard/risk.</p><p><strong>Acknowledgements</strong></p><p>This work was supported and conducted in the framework of the FEMME project (PCIF/MPG/0019/2017) funded by FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. The study was also supported by: i) National Funds by FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under the project UIDB/04033/2020; and, ii) National Funds by FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under the project UID/AMB/50017/2019. Data were provided by the European Forest Fire Information System – EFFIS (http://effis.jrc.ec.europa.eu) of the European Commission Joint Research Centre.</p>

Analysis and Forecasting of Fire incidence in Davao City

Fire incidence is a big problem for every local government unit in the Philippines. The two most detrimental effects of fire incidence are economic loss and loss of life. To mitigate these losses, proper planning and implementation of control measures must be done. An essential aspect of planning and control measures is prediction of possible fire incidences. This study is conducted to analyze the historical data to create a forecasting model for the fire incidence in Davao City. Results of the analyses show that fire incidence has no trend or seasonality, and occurrences of fire are neither consistently increasing nor decreasing over time. Furthermore, the absence of seasonality in the data indicate that surge of fire incidence may occur at any time of the year. Therefore, fire prevention activities should be done all year round and not just during fire prevention month.

Developing the Assessment and Indicators for Local Institutions in Dealing with Forest Fire Dilemma

This study analyzes the main criteria and indicators in strengthening local institutions in charge of forest management towards dealing with forest fire incidence in Riau Province, Indonesia. Data were collected using in-depth interviews, observation, and questionnaires and analyzed with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and other Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) techniques such as SPSS and Smart PLS. Moreover, only 87 out of the 120 questionnaires administered to related stakeholders were retrieved. Four variables, including Organization, Capacity, Authority, and Governance, were measured using ten indicators for each. The results showed a significant correlation between local institutions and these variables in solving forest management issues. It means there is a need to strengthen the institutions' structural plans to ensure the effective management of natural resources, and this is achievable through the support and help of the government and communities. Keywords: forest fire, local institutions, forest management.

Quantification of burnt areas as a fundamental parameter for the estimation of spatial and temporal patterns of fire incidence in Canaima National Park (Venezuela)

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Propensities of Old Growth, Mature and Regrowth Wet Eucalypt Forest, and Eucalyptus nitens Plantation, to Burn During Wildfire and Suffer Fire-Induced Crown Death

There are conflicting conclusions on how the flammability of wet eucalypt forests changes in the time after disturbances such as logging or wildfire. Some conclude that forests are most flammable in the decades following disturbance, while others conclude that disturbance has no effect on flammability. The comparative flammability of Eucalyptus nitens plantations in the same environment as wet eucalypt forest is not known. We determined fire incidence and fire severity in regrowth, mature and old growth wet eucalypt forest, and E. nitens plantation, in the Huon Valley, Tasmania after the January–February 2019 wildfire. To control for topographic variation and fire weather, we randomly selected sites within the fire footprint, then randomly located a paired site for each in different forest types in the same topographic environment within 3 km. Each pair of sites was burned on the same day. Old growth forest and plantations were the least likely to burn. Old growth and mature forest exhibited scorched eucalypt crowns to a much lesser degree than regrowth forests. In a comparison of paired sites, plantation forest was less likely to burn than combined mature and old growth forests, but in all cases of detected ignition the canopy of plantation was scorched. The lower flammability of older forests, and their importance as an increasing store of carbon, suggests that a cessation of logging outside plantations might have considerable benefits.

A Micro-Controller Based Biogas Leakage and Fire Detection System

Most biogas units in the rural area have no smoke or fire alert safety mechanism. This has always resulted in indoor air pollution and or property damage in case of fire incidence. This unfortunate incident are preventable by installing a simple automated device to alert the owner in the event of smoke or fire for necessary action. This study focuses on a biogas leakage alarm system that alerts the owner via a buzzer, SMS, and call. The device uses an MQ-2 sensor to detect ignitable gas spillage and smoke. This high signal monitored by the Arduino Uno also leads to red LED lighting when the set smoke threshold is exceeded. The systems are portable and can be positioned in an appropriate position in the kitchen. This device is highly recommended in all the kitchens using biogas or firewood to alert the user in case of smoke indoor air pollution or fire breakout.