Modeling fire susceptibility to delineate wildland-urban interface for municipal-scale fire risk management

Ellen Whitman, Eric Rapaport, Kate Sherren

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The wildland-urban interface (WUI) is the region where development meets and intermingles with wildlands. The WUI has an elevated fire risk due to the proximity of development and residents to wildlands with natural wildfire regimes. Existing methods of delineating WUI are typically applied over a large region, use proxies for risk, and do not consider site-specific fire hazard drivers. While these models are appropriate for federal and provincial risk management, municipal managers require models intended for smaller regions. The model developed here uses the Burn-P3 fire behavior model to model WUI from local fire susceptibility (FS) in two study communities. Forest fuel code (FFC) maps for the study communities were modified using remote sensing data to produce detailed forest edges, including ladder fuels, update data currency, and add buildings and roads. The modified FFC maps used in Burn-P3 produced bimodal FS distributions for each community. The WUI in these communities was delineated as areas within community bounds where FS was greater than or equal to -1 SD from the mean FS value ($${\text{WUI}} = {\text{FS}} \geqslant - 1 \, [\bar \chi - \sigma ]$$ WUI = FS ≥ - 1 [ χ ̄ - σ ]), which fell in the trough of the bimodal distribution. The WUI so delineated conformed to the definition of WUI. This model extends WUI modeling for broader risk management initiatives for municipal management of risk, as it (a) considers site-specific drivers of fire behavior; (b) models risk, represented by WUI, specific to a community; and, (c) does not use proxies for risk.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1427-1439
Number of pages13
JournalEnvironmental Management
Volume52
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2013

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • Global and Planetary Change
  • Ecology
  • Pollution

PubMed: MeSH publication types

  • Journal Article
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

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