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Abstract
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This paper presents an analysis of ignition and burn risk due to wildfire in a region of Ontario, Canada using a methodology which is applicable to the entire
boreal forest region. A generalized additive model was employed to obtain
ignition risk probabilities and a burn probability map using only historic ignition
and fire area data. Constructing fire shapes according to an accurate physical
model for fire spread, using a fuel map and realistic weather scenarios is
possible with the Prometheus fire growth simulation model. Thus, we applied the
Burn-P3 implementation of Prometheus to construct a more accurate burn
probability map. The fuel map for the study region was verified and corrected.
Burn-P3 simulations were run under the settings (related to weather)
recommended in the software documentation and were found to be fairly robust
to errors in the fuel map, but simulated fire sizes were substantially larger than
those observed in the historic record. By adjusting the input parameters to reflect
suppression effects, we obtained a model which gives more appropriate fire
sizes. The resulting burn probability map suggests that risk of fire in the study
area is much lower than what is predicted by Burn-P3 under its recommended
settings. |