Author(s)

L. Serra, M. Saez, D. Varga, A. Tobías, P. Juan & J. Mateu

Abstract

Forest fire management is not only an emergency task, the preventive task could be even more important, being better to avoid the risk of a forest fire ignition before it starts or minimize its hazard, rather than later trying to extinguish it. If we associate wildfires with their spatial coordinates, along with other variables, it is possible to identify them by means of a spatio-temporal stochastic process. Spatio-temporal clustering of wildfires could indicate the presence of risk factors. In fact, what is usually of interest is to assess their dependence on covariates. Two were the objectives in this paper. Firstly, to evaluate how the extent of clustering in wildfires differs across marks. Secondly, to analyze the influence of covariates on trends in the intensity of wildfire locations. We analyzed the spatio-temporal patterns produced by wildfire incidences in Catalonia, located in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula. The total number of fires recorded in the studied area, during the period 1994–2008, was 10,783. In addition to the locations of the fire centroids, several marks and spatial covariates were considered. We specified spatio-temporal log-Gaussian Cox Modelling, Monitoring and Management of

Keywords

wildfire, spatio-temporal point processes, marks, covariates, log- Gaussian Cox models, GMRF, INLA