Insurable losses due to wildland fire: can spatial models provide useful estimates of risk?

野火对加拿大林地中的定居点、基础设施和工业构成了重大威胁。艾伯塔省麦克默里堡最近的大规模疏散和广泛的建筑破坏代表着40亿美元的保险损失。由于气候变暖，以及加拿大林区工业持续发展和人口增长，此类事件的频率和遭受损失的风险可能会增加。由此造成的损失可能会威胁到保险公司的盈利能力，甚至生存能力。评估这些风险的一种常见方法是通过基于计算机的火灾发生和蔓延模型。在加拿大，野火模拟引擎Burn-P3经常用于这一目的。我们的合作伙伴Desjardins Groupe d‘AsInsurance Générales(DGAG)有兴趣确定Burn-P3’S估计的火灾危险图是否足够可靠，可以在他们的业务中使用，并对其在全国范围内的年度预测可扩展性表示担忧。本提案旨在评估和比较Burn-P3和申请人开发的替代危险图方法的可靠性。这两种方法将相互比较，并与加拿大魁北克Abitibi-Témiscamingue地区大片研究区域的独立火灾发生数据进行比较。还将评估它们的相对计算效率和可伸缩性。

Wildland fires pose significant threats to the settlements, infrastructure and industry embedded in Canada's forested lands. The recent mass evacuations and extensive structural damage in Fort McMurray, Alberta represented four billion dollars of insured losses. The frequency of such events and the exposure to losses are likely to increase due to climate warming, and continued industrial development and population growth in forested regions of Canada. The resultant losses could threaten insurance company profitability or even viability. A common method to assess these risks is by means of computer-based models of fire occurrence and spread. In Canada, the wildfire simulation engine Burn-P3 is often used for this purpose. Our partner, Desjardins Groupe d'Assurance Générales (DGAG), is interested to determine if Burn-P3's estimated fire hazard maps are reliable enough for use in their business, and is also concerned about their scalability to annual predictions at national extents. This proposal was developed to seeks to assess and compare the reliability of Burn-P3 and an alternate hazard mapping methodology developed by the applicant. The two methods will be compared against each other and against independent fire-occurrence data over a large study area in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec, Canada. Their relative computational efficiency and scalability will also be assessed.