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The importance of small fires for wildfire hazard in urbanised landscapes of the northeastern US
- Source :
- International Journal of Wildland Fire. 30:307-321
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- CSIRO Publishing, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Frequent, small wildfires can pose dangers to homes in the wildland–urban interface, but are not often included in wildfire hazard models. We assessed patterns of small wildfire occurrence probability in the Northeast region of the United States, focusing on (1) spatial and seasonal variations; (2) differences between small and large fires (size threshold of 4 ha); and (3) how predicted probabilities are influenced by inconsistent wildfire definitions in urbanised landscapes. We analysed fire incident report data from 2005 to 2017 to parameterise maximum entropy (MaxEnt) models based on land cover, topography, climatic water deficit, soil moisture and road density. Overall, wildfire occurrence was highest in areas with lower agricultural cover and with more low-density urban development (explaining 53.5 and 28.6% of variance, respectively, in our region-wide model), while larger fires were concentrated in areas with intermediate levels of development, higher climatic water deficit and more rugged topography. These patterns were largely consistent when we assessed models for individual states, but differences in wildfire reporting patterns led to differences in the effect of urban development on fire probability. Our results provide novel understanding of small wildfire patterns in the Northeast and demonstrate the need to more reliably quantify these hazards.
- Subjects :
- 040101 forestry
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Ecology
Fire regime
Occurrence probability
government.form_of_government
Variance (land use)
Forestry
04 agricultural and veterinary sciences
Land cover
01 natural sciences
Hazard
Urban planning
government
0401 agriculture, forestry, and fisheries
Environmental science
Physical geography
Wildland–urban interface
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Incident report
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14485516 and 10498001
- Volume :
- 30
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- International Journal of Wildland Fire
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........ac058f28a8f16dda061ed67e988df0f7
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1071/wf20186