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Predictive analysis of fire frequency based on daily temperatures

Natural Hazards volume 97, pages 1175–1189 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Frequent fires can affect ecosystems and public safety. The occurrence of fires has varied with hot and cold months in China. To analyze how temperature influences fire frequency, a fire dataset including 20,622 fires and a historical weather dataset for Changsha in China were gathered and processed. Through data mining, it was found that the mean daily fire frequency tended to be the lowest in the temperature range of (20 °C, 25 °C] and should be related to the low utilization rate of electricity. Through polynomial fitting, it was found that the prediction performance using the daily minimum temperature was generally better than that using the daily maximum temperature, and a quadruplicate polynomial model based on the mean daily minimum temperature of 3 days (the day and the prior 2 days) had the best performance. Then, a temperature-based fire frequency prediction model was established using quadruplicate polynomial regression. Moreover, the results are contrary to the content stipulated in China’s national standard of urban fire-danger weather ratings GB/T 20487-2006. The findings of this study can be applied as technical guidance for fire risk prediction and the revision of GB/T 20487-2006.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51676210 and 51608163) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos. 502501004 and 502045009). The authors would like to thank Wencai Li and Fengcai Yan from the fire department of Changsha for providing data and good advice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410075, China

    Dingli Liu, Zhisheng Xu & Chuangang Fan

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  1. Dingli Liu
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  2. Zhisheng Xu
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  3. Chuangang Fan
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Correspondence to Chuangang Fan.

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Liu, D., Xu, Z. & Fan, C. Predictive analysis of fire frequency based on daily temperatures. Nat Hazards 97, 1175–1189 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-019-03694-1

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Keywords

  • Fire frequency
  • Temperature
  • Electrical fire
  • Predictive analysis
  • Polynomial regression