Commentary on the article “Burn probability simulation and subsequent wildland fire activity in Alberta, Canada – Implications for risk assessment and strategic planning” by J.L. Beverly and N. McLoughlin
Commentary on the article “Burn probability simulation and subsequent wildland fire activity in Alberta, Canada – Implications for risk assessment and strategic planning” by J.L. Beverly and N. McLoughlin
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对 J.L. Beverly 和 N. McLoughlin 的文章“加拿大艾伯塔省的燃烧概率模拟和随后的荒地火灾活动——对风险评估和战略规划的影响”一文的评论
DOI：
10.1016/j.foreco.2019.117698
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发表时间：
2020
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
E. Whitman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Parisien;A. Ager;A. Barros;Denyse A. Dawe;Sandy Erni;M. Finney;Charles W. McHugh;Carol Miller;S. Parks;K. Riley;K. Short;C. Stockdale;Xianli Wang;E. Whitman
已经进行了使用荒地火灾蔓延模型的蒙特卡罗模拟，以产生火灾可能性的数值估计，预测潜在的火灾影响，并产生现实野火的事件集（Parisien等人，2019年）。在过去的几十年里，由于计算能力的提高、可用数据的增加以及我们对景观火动力学的基本理解，这些方法的应用已经大大扩展。在他们最近发表的文章中，Beverly和McLoughlin（2019）试图通过测试“观察到的燃烧区域与火灾前燃烧概率地图之间的对应关系”来评估他们为加拿大阿尔伯塔的五个大区域制作的火灾可能性输出（以下简称“燃烧概率”[BP]）的准确性，以“探索决策者的期望如何影响我们对地图准确性的评估”。为此，他们叠加了用Burn-P3火灾模拟模型计算的BP估计值（Parisien等人，2005年）与最近被野火烧毁的地区，从Burn-P3使用的参考年到2017年。他们的研究结果显示，在三个研究区域中，最近烧伤的高概率区域具有中等的统计偏好，而在其余两个区域中没有偏好。这使他们得出结论，“将这些地图用于研究或其他应用时应谨慎行事，并考虑到其缺点和明显的局限性”。他们否认英国石油公司估算的准确性，是在向管理者和研究界发出一个错误的信息，即英国石油公司的地图没有用处。
Monte Carlo simulations using wildland fire spread models have been conducted to produce numerical estimates of fire likelihood, project potential fire effects, and produce event sets of realistic wildfires (Parisien et al., 2019). The application of these methods has greatly expanded over the last few decades as a result of increased computation capabilities, available data, and our fundamental understanding of landscape fire dynamics. In their recently published article, Beverly and McLoughlin (2019) attempt to assess the accuracy of fire likelihood outputs (hereafter “burn probability”[BP]) they produced for five large areas in Alberta, Canada, by testing the “correspondence between observed burned areas and pre-fire burn probability maps” in order to “explore how the expectations of decision-makers influenced our assessment of map accuracy.” To do so, they superimposed BP estimates computed with the Burn-P3 fire simulation model (Parisien et al., 2005) with areas recently burned by wildfire from the reference year used in Burn-P3 until 2017. Their results show a moderate statistical preference of recent burns for high-probability areas in three study areas and no preference in the remaining two. This leads them to conclude that “the use of these maps for research or other applications should be approached with caution and consideration of their shortcomings and apparent limitations.” In dismissing the accuracy of the BP estimates, they are sending an erroneous message to managers and the research community that BP maps are not useful.