Interacting effects of topography, vegetation, human activities and wildland-urban interfaces on wildfire ignition risk

Abstract

Effective fire prevention requires a better understanding of the patterns and causes of fire ignition. In this study, we focus on the interacting factors known to influence fire ignition risk, such as the type of vegetation, topographical features and the wildlandurban interface (WUI; i.e. where urban development meet or intermingle with wildland). We also analyze the human activities and motivations related to fires and whether they differ depending on the type of vegetation and the location within/outside WUI. There were significant interactions between topography, type of vegetation and location within/outside WUI. The risk of ignition was in general higher at lower elevations, and this tendency was more marked in forested land covers (all plantations and open woodlands), with the noticeable exception of native forests. North-facing sites had lower fire ignition risk outside the WUI, especially in native forests, while southern aspects showed higher fire ignition risk, especially in open shrublands. However, this effect of the aspect was only significant outside WUI areas. In relation to causes, there were also interactions between human activities/motivations related to fires, the type of vegetation and the location within/outside WUI. All forestry plantations appeared clustered in relation to fire causes, especially in the WUI, with high incidence of deliberately caused fires related to violent or mentally ill people and rekindle fires. In contrast, native forests, despite structural similarities with forestry plantations, showed more similarity with agricultural areas and open woodlands in relation to fire causes. In shrublands, there was a relatively high incidence of fires related to ranching, especially outside the WUI. This pattern of interactions depicts a complex scenario in relation to fire ignition risk and prompts to the importance of taking this complexity into account in order to adjust fire management measures for improved effectiveness.

Risk Assessment and Regionalization of Fire Disaster Based on Analytic Hierarchy Process and MODIS Data: A Case Study of Inner Mongolia, China

“…Our results revealed that the distance to roads showed an exponential relationship, while the distance to settlements exhibited a volcano type trend with the number of fire hotspots. The role of human being in fire has also been identified by several researchers [5,7,51,52]. Fire is more prone to happen near roads and settlements, and most fire hotspots were found to be nearly 10 km away from settlements in our research, By contrast, Tian and Zhao [53] pointed out that fire frequently occurred relatively near or far from settlements, particularly less than 1 km or more than 10 km.…”

Determinants of Land Use/Cover Change in the Iberian Peninsula (1990–2012) at Municipal Level

“…This is not to say that deforestation is absent from Spanish territory, very often associated to wildfires, as in Portugal [44]. The areas that the model associates to deforestation in Spain are concentrated in the northern half of the peninsula, in areas of the Pyrenees and Iberian System [45] and in the northwestern mountains where incendiary activity is recurrent [46].…”

A Hybrid GIS and AHP Approach for Modelling Actual and Future Forest Fire Risk Under Climate Change Accounting Water Resources Attenuation Role

“…Classes and ratings are shown in Table 3 and a general conceptual model is shown in Figure 2. Elevation and slope were classified using equal interval according to site characteristics, for example, considering elevation, there was a general tendency of higher fire ignition risk at lower elevations [72]. Aspect, instead, was classified according to current literature [18,25,73] considering common patterns of a lower ignition risk in northern aspects.…”