Authors: Anees Ahmed Pinjari, Prashant Yelmar
Abstract: Wildfires have become one of the greatest and the most ongoing environmental hazards in the state of California, with a profound ecological loss, finances, and loss of life. Spatio-temporal dynamics of wildfire incidences are of great importance to the successful detection of the threat, mitigation planning, and allocation of resources. This paper is a Spatio-analytical analysis of wildfire threat in California based on incident-level data between 2013 and 2019. The analysis will incorporate time trends, spatial dispersion, fire intensity, duration, loss of life, and fire management efforts to recognize at risk areas and the changing nature of wildfires. Findings indicate that there was a strong increase in the severity and duration of wildfires in 20172018, with an excessively high proportion of acreage and deaths being agglomerated around a limited number of large events. Spatial analysis points to the areas of constant hotspots of wildfires in southeastern California, where the presence of fires correlates closely with population density and administrative fire management areas. The results also show that the efficiency of wildfire response increases after a severe fire season, as evidenced by diminished person deployment compared to the severity of the incidence in the following years. Revealing the essential spatial trends and temporal changes in the behaviour of wildfires, this investigation provides practical information to detect threats in time, mitigate them, and use the time as a policy to prevent wildfires. The suggested analytical framework is a data-based source of the improvement of wildfire preparedness and assisting in predictive and decision-support systems in the future.
