Empirical models of forest fire initial attack success probabilities : the effects of fuels, anthropogenic linear features, fire weather, and management

Canadian fire managers seek to contain fires below some target size (here 3 ha) by initial attack (IA). Suppression failures occur when fire size at IA exceeds this target (a response failure) or if an initially small fire cannot be contained below it (a containment failure). We examined the effects of cause, season, forest fuels, anthropogenic linear features, weather, and fire management (response time, size at IA) on the probability of these two types of suppression failures, using multiple logistic regression on 1196 fires that occurred within the boreal mixedwood forest of northeastern Alberta during 1995–2002. The frequencies of containment (7%) and response failures (10%) were similar, but the latter accounted for 85% of the area burned. Response failure probability was greater for fires caused by lightning than those caused by humans and increased with longer response times, local abundance of black spruce in summer, and pine fuel under severe fire weather. We found no effect of linear features or...

[1]  D. Collett.  Modelling Binary Data , 1991 .

[2]  Wiktor L. Adamowicz,et al.  A Logit Model for Predicting the Daily Occurrence of Human Caused Forest-Fires , 1995 .

[3]  David L. Martell,et al.  Forest Fire Management , 2001 .

[4]  E. Johnson,et al.  FIRE FREQUENCY AND THE SPATIAL AGE MOSAIC OF THE MIXED‐WOOD BOREAL FOREST IN WESTERN CANADA , 2000 .

[5]  Peter L. Bonate,et al.  The Effect of Collinearity on Parameter Estimates in Nonlinear Mixed Effect Models , 1999, Pharmaceutical Research.

[6]  Brean W. Duncan,et al.  Anthropogenic influences on potential fire spread in a pyrogenic ecosystem of Florida, USA , 2004, Landscape Ecology.

[7]  David L. Martell,et al.  Using Expert Judgment to Model Initial Attack Fire Crew Effectiveness , 1998, Forest Science.

[8]  David W. Hosmer,et al.  Applied Logistic Regression , 1991 .

[9]  D. Downing,et al.  Forest growth and revegetation along seismic lines , 1984 .

[10]  G. Armstrong.  A stochastic characterisation of the natural disturbance regime of the boreal mixedwood forest with implications for sustainable forest management , 1999 .

[11]  P. McCullagh,et al.  Generalized Linear Models , 1972, Predictive Analytics.

[12]  George M. Parks,et al.  Development and Application of a Model for Suppression of Forest Fires , 1964 .

[13]  P. J. Murphy,et al.  Exploratory analysis of the variables affecting initial attack hot-spotting containment rate , 1991 .

[14]  J. Rowe,et al.  Forest regions of Canada. , 1972 .

[15]  P. J. Murphy,et al.  Validation of an index system for estimating fireline production with handtools , 1989 .

[16]  David L. Martell,et al.  A Review of Initial Attack Fire Crew Productivity and Effectiveness , 1996 .

[17]  Mike D. Flannigan,et al.  LIGHTNING-IGNITED FOREST FIRES IN NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO , 1991 .

[18]  P. Richard,et al.  Variability in Fire Frequency and Forest Composition in Canada'sSoutheastern Boreal Forest: A Challenge for Sustainable ForestManagement , 1998 .

[19]  C. E. Van Wagner,et al.  Conditions for the start and spread of crown fire , 1977 .

[20]  Sunil J Rao,et al.  Regression Modeling Strategies: With Applications to Linear Models, Logistic Regression, and Survival Analysis , 2003 .

[21]  David L. Martell,et al.  Modelling seasonal variation in daily people-caused forest fire occurrence , 1989 .

[22]  Steven G. Cumming,et al.  Effective fire suppression in boreal forests , 2005 .

[23]  David R. Anderson,et al.  Model selection and inference : a practical information-theoretic approach , 2000 .

[24]  C. E. Van Wagner,et al.  Development and structure of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System , 1987 .

[25]  K. Hirsch,et al.  Large forest fires in Canada, 1959–1997 , 2002 .

[26]  E. Stechishen.  Measurement of the effectiveness of water as a fire suppressant. , 1970 .

[27]  Yves Bergeron,et al.  Role of vegetation and weather on fire behavior in the Canadian mixedwood boreal forest using two fire behavior prediction systems. , 2001 .

[28]  A. A. Cunningham,et al.  The use of subjective probability assessments to predict forest fire occurrence , 1976 .

[29]  Steven G. Cumming,et al.  A parametric model of the fire-size distribution , 2001 .

[30]  Carol Miller,et al.  Connectivity of forest fuels and surface fire regimes , 2000, Landscape Ecology.

[31]  S. Ventura,et al.  ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS INFLUENCING WILDFIRES IN THE UPPER MIDWEST, UNITED STATES , 2001 .

[32]  R. Wein,et al.  Biotic and abiotic regulation of lightning fire initiation in the mixedwood boreal forest. , 2006, Ecology.

[33]  S. Cumming.  FOREST TYPE AND WILDFIRE IN THE ALBERTA BOREAL MIXEDWOOD: WHAT DO FIRES BURN? , 2001 .

[34]  Eric R. Ziegel,et al.  Generalized Linear Models , 2002, Technometrics.

[35]  David L. Martell,et al.  Productivity of Ontario initial-attack fire crews: results of an expert-judgement elicitation study , 2004 .