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Communities interspersed throughout the Canadian wildland are threatened by fires that have become bigger and more frequent in some parts of the country in recent decades. Identifying the fireshed (source area) and pathways from which wildland fire may ignite and spread from the landscape to a community is crucial for risk‐reduction strategy and planning. We used outputs from a fire simulation model, including fire polygons and rate of spread, to map firesheds, fire pathways and corridors and spread distances for 1980 communities in the forested areas of Canada. We found fireshed sizes are larger in the north, where the mean distances between ecumene and fireshed perimeters were greater than 10 km. The Rayleigh Z test indicated that simulated fires around a large proportion of communities show significant directional trends, and these trends are stronger in the Boreal Plains and Shields than in the Rocky Mountain area. The average distance from which fire, when spreading at the maximum simulated rate, could reach the community perimeter was approximately 5, 12 and 18 km in 1, 2 and 3 days, respectively. The average daily spread distances increased latitudinally, from south to north. Spread distances were the shortest in the Pacific Maritime, Atlantic Maritime and Boreal Plains Ecozones, implying lower rates of spread compared to the rest of the country. The fire corridors generated from random ignitions and from ignitions predicted from local fire history differ, indicating that factors other than fuel (e.g. fire weather, ignition pattern) play a significant role in determining the direction that fires burn into a community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence‐based studies in the environmental sciences frequently rely on the presence of spatially dense climatological data. However, such data are often available only at a fixed set of locations that may be regularly or irregularly arranged across a region. Spatial interpolation enables the approximation of variables of interest at locations between those sites. When conducting interpolation in collaboration with an end user or in interdisciplinary research, mutual knowledge exchange allows for greater insight on what is required of an interpolation method since each may have different pros and cons. We outline and discuss several key considerations one should make in an interpolation study, such as the purpose of the variable and the goals of the end user, including how the variable is used to inform decisions. This process is then illustrated via case study within a wildland fire weather context. For the province of Ontario, Canada, we contrast several methods for interpolating the Fire Weather Index (FWI), comparing them quantitatively via metrics and qualitatively using a proposed categorical gradients visualization scheme. Conditional simulations and a spatial ensemble are also investigated. This work is in collaboration with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]