this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 137 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Well I'm here so I guess I'll answer.

There are many human drivers of fire, the first and foremost being, well you know, lighting a fire. And boy, do humans light a lot of fires.

Take for example, here is a map of active fires around the globe, right now:

First order human drivers of fire are things we actively or accidentally do to light a fire. Ignition is a fundamental for fire to happen, and humans cause WAY more ignition events than nature does. Things like a cook fire, burning brush or downed debris for management purposes, infrastructure like power lines or fueling stations, car accidents, lit cigarettes being thrown out etc.. etc.. The timing and frequency of these events directly influence the frequency of fires.

Second order drivers are things like vegetation management, home placing and construction, and other biophysical drivers. For example, introduction of invasive species like bromus tectorum, which burns very readily, represents more fine fuels in the environment. Yadayadayada more fires. Other things around vegetation management would fall into this category, such as the suppression of fire, or the psychical thinning of fuels in forests, or prescribed burns.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Well I'm here so I guess I'll answer.

Are... are you McCarty et al., TropicalDingdong?

edit: [email protected]

[–] [email protected] 76 points 9 months ago (5 children)

No no no, I'm an et al, just no any of those particular et al. I focus on wildfire risk and have read much on the topic. I've read McCarty and many more when it comes to understanding wildfire and wildfire risk. Some of my research focuses on wildfire risk, and spatial features as they relate to wildfire risk, so drivers becomes pretty important when it comes to wildfire risk modeling. I have taken several courses through NASA on the matter even though I don't focus on drivers directly.

This is the kind of thing I'm working on:

The nodes are features, the edges are weights. In this case I'm just looking at structure:structure risk.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I'm sorry, but you obviously don't understand wildfires. You should really try reading Tropical Dingdongs, Esq.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

When you refer to that diagram, is it a way of gauging fire spread risk? Like this grill could start a medium sized fire, and it's close to a shed which could become big fire, and that could spread to house, etc, etc?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So to be clear, I'm not trying to model spread. I'm taking a pretty different approach which is to look at metrics I can derive from an entire network, like centrality and modularity, and use those to predict the overall probability of survival. I'm not trying to say where or how a fire might progress through a network, but rather looking at the overall structure of a network at, for example the parcel resolution, to estimate the likely hood that a given structure might survive a wildfire.

So in the above figure, (it was literally a screen cap of what I had on at that moment, so no effort into graphic design etc.), the diameter of the circle corresponds to the exposure, which is weighted by the total facing. The units on the edges are kilojoules per m^2 per 300 seconds. The circles are on the 'receiving' side of the network (this is a directed kpartite network, and we're only looking at structure:structure edges).

So you can imagine that if you stand with your face to a campfire, you receive more radiation than if you stand edgeways. Likewise if you take a step back. Same principal. I'm not adjusting the edge weights for structural composition or construction (although I'd like to. in the metaphore, all the campfires are the same size and intensity). This is just assuming that each structure will put out about the same amount of energy when burning. However, because of the physical arrangement of things in space, they do not necessarily all experience the same exposure. We can use those differences to create a set of weights, and then by looking at how 'modular' the system is at a given exposure rating (IE, how fully connected is the graph at a given kJ/m2), we might find that the network breaks into some interesting or predictive components.

So, very long answer, but trying to make it shorter: I'm not trying to model spread or predict how fire would move through this system. I'm trying to come up with an overall probabilistic assessment or risk based on how 'connected' features are in space.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well that's pretty cool, thanks for sharing! :D To repeat to check my understanding, you're looking at where structures are relative to other structures, their shape and orientation, and how that goes together in a big system to influence general structure survival in a wildfire situation.

Do you foresee the outcome being something where you could "tune" a neighborhood to be more survivable, or would it end up with too many combinations to be viable?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

yeah so there was a nature publication last year basically demonstrating this, however, they were working on 30 meter pixels.

I kinda got scooped, but I was always working in much higher resolution data.

But basically yeah. We can look at the network and identify where it can be hardened in or broken apart to be make more resistant.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Cool! I have no idea what any of that means, but cool! I get the feeling that you really enjoy what you do, and if that's the case I'm glad for you :3

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

No no no, I'm an et al, just no any of those particular et al.

I'm going to ~~steal~~ cite this. I guess it'll be 'et al et al.'

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

The nodes are features

I think the fact every car is white is a feature.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

...such as the suppression of fire, or the psychical thinning of fuels in forests, or prescribed burns.

I'm definitely picturing Jedi clearing debris from the forest floors using the Force, now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Take for example, here is a map of active fires around the globe, right now:

By "fires" do they mean fores fires? Controlled fires to burn crops, or burn land to clear it for crops? House fires? Bonfires? Campfires? Fires in fireplaces?

Ignition is a fundamental for fire to happen, and humans cause WAY more ignition events than nature does.

A car causes hundreds of ignition effects per minute. But, I'm guessing you mean a certain kind of ignition?

The timing and frequency of these events directly influence the frequency of fires.

The timing and frequency of things like lighting a fire directly influence the frequency of fires? Do you mean the frequency of out-of-control fires? Because otherwise that seems like a pretty obvious conclusion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Thank you so much for sharing something that you are passionate about. It was awesome to hear about, and I hope you continue to share the knowledge you have with others like myself. 😁