Estimating the risk of fire outbreaks in the natural environment

• Published in: Data mining and knowledge discovery 2012-03, Vol.24 (2), p.411-442
• Main Authors: Stojanova, Daniela, Kobler, Andrej, Ogrinc, Peter, Ženko, Bernard, Džeroski, Sašo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Carbon dioxide; Chemistry and Earth Sciences; Climate change; Coasts; Computer Science; Data mining; Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery; Decision trees; Deforestation; Drought; Ecosystems; Emissions; Global warming; Greenhouse gases; Information Storage and Retrieval; Physics; Prevention; Remote sensing; Statistics for Engineering; Threats; Water shortages; Weather
• ISSN: 1384-5810; 1573-756X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10618-011-0213-2

A constant and controlled level of emission of carbon and other gases into the atmosphere is a pre-condition for preventing global warming and an essential issue for a sustainable world. Fires in the natural environment are phenomena that extensively increase the level of greenhouse emissions and disturb the normal functioning of natural ecosystems. Therefore, estimating the risk of fire outbreaks and fire prevention are the first steps in reducing the damage caused by fire. In this study, we build predictive models to estimate the risk of fire outbreaks in Slovenia, using data from a GIS, Remote Sensing imagery and the weather prediction model ALADIN. The study is carried out on three datasets, from three regions: one for the Kras region, one for the coastal region and one for continental Slovenia. On these datasets, we apply both classical statistical approaches and state-of-the-art data mining algorithms, such as ensembles of decision trees, in order to obtain predictive models of fire outbreaks. In addition, we explore the influence of fire fuel information on the performance of the models, measured in terms of accuracy, Kappa statistic, precision and recall. Best results in terms of predictive accuracy are obtained by ensembles of decision trees.