Search

This article presents an analysis of Ontario Fire Weather Index (FWI) data†The data used is ©1963–2004, Queen’s Printer for Ontario, Canada, and was referenced under agreement with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/lssp.using the block bootstrap for time series. Confidence intervals for parameters such as the first lag autocorrelation can have low coverage relative to the nominal level. Therefore, adjustments to the confidence intervals are necessary in order to achieve reasonable accuracy. We introduce a confidence interval calibration method in which the length of the confidence interval is adjusted according to an amount determined from a double bootstrap. We compare this method with the α-level adjustment method, and we find that the length-adjustment method is superior under scenarios similar to that of the FWI data: coverage proportions are slightly higher for the length-adjustment approach, and confidence interval widths are markedly smaller. Applying the length-adjustment method to the Ontario FWI data gives different results than would be obtained without adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]