Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) - wildfire: incident reporting system - data analyses

This report examines Incident Reporting System (IRS) data on wildland fire incidents and uses these to improve the understanding of how upland wildfires start, investigate if wildfire occurrence differs between geographical areas; and describe how wildfires exhibit seasonal and temporal trends.


Table of Figures

Figure 2.1 Locations of IRS fires in the Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire areas. Legend shows years when fire incidents were recorded.

Figure 3.1 Flowchart of proposed methodology steps for the analysis of the SFRS IRS dataset.

Figure 4.1 Locations of the filtered IRS dataset of wildfires

Figure 5.1 Yearly counts of IRS wildfires from 2009 to 2020 for a) complete wildfires dataset and b) wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2. Records for 2009 start from April 1st 2009.

Figure 5.2 Monthly counts and proportions (in %) of IRS wildfires for the 2009-2020 period for a) complete wildfires dataset and b) wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Figure 5.3 Stacked proportions of Broad Habitats (BHs) classified from Level 3 Property Types for years 2009 to 2020 for a) all IRS wildfires and b) IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Figure 5.4 Stacked proportions of Broad Habitats (BHs) classified from LCS88 classes for years 2009 to 2020 for a) all IRS wildfires and b) IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Figure 5.5 Monthly counts of IRS wildfires per Broad Habitat (BH) classified from Level 3 Property Types for the 2009-2020 period for a) all IRS wildfires and b) IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Figure 5.6 Monthly counts of IRS wildfires per Broad Habitat (BH) classified from LCS88 classes for the 2009-2020 period for a) all IRS wildfires and b) IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Figure 5.7 Stacked proportions of Broad Habitats (BHs) classified from Level 3 Property Types per recorded motive for years 2009 to 2020 for a) all IRS wildfires and b) wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Figure 5.8 Stacked proportions of Broad Habitats (BHs) classified from LCS88 classes per recorded motive for years 2009 to 2020 for a) all IRS wildfires and b) wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Figure 5.9 Stacked proportions of IRS wildfire Broad Habitats (BH) classified from a) Level 3 Property Types and b) LCS88 classes per Damage Area (DA) group: 0-100 m2; 100-1,000 m2 and >1,000 m2.

Figure 5.10 Counts of a) IRS wildfires and b) wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 for the 8-fold Urban Rural (UR) classification system.

Figure 5.11 Stacked proportions of Broad Habitats (BH) classified from Level 3 Property Types per Urban Rural (UR) 8-folds for a) all IRS wildfires and b) wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Figure 5.12 Stacked proportions of Broad Habitats (BH) classified from LCS88 classes per Urban Rural (UR) 8-folds for a) all IRS wildfires and b) wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Figure 5.13 Dendrogram showing groupings from a) Clusters A and b) Clusters B. Numbers correspond to the ID column in Table 5.41.

Figure 5.14 Local Authorities mapped per cluster groups

Figure 5.15 Yearly stacked proportions of IRS wildfires from 2009 to 2020 per a) Clusters A and b) Clusters B groups.

Figure 5.16 Monthly stacked proportions of IRS wildfires for the 2009-2020 period per a) Clusters A and b) Clusters B groups.

Figure 5.17 Stacked proportions per Clusters A groups of IRS wildfire Broad Habitat (BH) types classified from a) Level 3 Property Types and b) LCS88 classes.

Figure 5.18 Stacked proportions per Clusters B groups of IRS wildfire Broad Habitat (BH) types classified from a) Level 3 Property Types and b) LCS88 classes.

Figure 5.19 Stacked proportions of recorded motive for IRS wildfires per a) Clusters A and b) Clusters B groups.

Figure 5.20 Stacked proportions of IRS wildfire recorded Damage Area (DA) group: None; 0-100 m2; 100-1,000 m2 and >1,000 m2 per a) Clusters A and b) Clusters B groups.

Figure 5.21 Stacked proportions of IRS wildfire 8-fold Urban Rural (UR) classification system per a) Clusters A and b) Clusters B groups.

Figure 6.1 Delineated burnt area using Sentinel-2 imagery (colour infrared) close to Strathcarron, Highland LA. Black dot represents location of recorded IRS wildfire corresponding to the burnt area polygon, dot label gives the Incident ID and polygon label gives the date the satellite imagery was taken.

Figure 6.2 Distribution of burnt area polygons mapped using calculated burnt area size. White lines indicate local authority boundaries.

Figure 6.3 Recorded IRS wildfire burnt area (in ha) vs calculated burnt area for corresponding burnt area polygons based on a) all wildfire incidents with available information (n=48) and b) wildfire incidents with burnt area recorded less than 500 ha (n=36). Blue line represents 1:1 relationship.

Figure 7.1 Distribution of EFFIS burnt area polygons mapped based on burnt area classes.

Figure 7.2 Counts of EFFIS burnt area polygons per a) studied countries; and b) month for all countries.

Figure 7.3 Monthly stacked counts of dominant cover fuel type groups of the EFFIS burnt polygons for the countries included in the analysis.

Figure 8.1 Importance of covariates used for ignition risk modelling based on MDA.

Figure 8.2 Predicted fire locations with probability of ignition greater than 0.6. Red dots represent the centroids of 250m grid cells.

Figure 8.3 Predicted fire locations (probability of ignition >0.6) in relation to burnt area polygons in a) the area around Loch Morar and b) area around Strathnaver, both in the Highland LA. Red dots represent the centroids of 250m grid cells.

Figure 8.4 Boxplots of values of nearest distance to roads, elevation, mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation for the areas predicted as positive ignitions (i.e., fire locations) and negative ignitions (i.e., no fire occurrence) using a probability threshold of 0.6.

Table of Tables

Table 2.1 Counts and proportions (in %) of fire incidents recorded in the IRS dataset Property Type Levels 2 and 3.

Table 4.1 Classification of IRS Level 3 Property Types into Broad Habitats (BH) and Land Use (LUSE) classes. For LUSE classes: CULT=Cultivated land; SEMI=Seminatural vegetation; BOTH=Could be both cultivated land and seminatural vegetation.

Table 4.2 Classification of EUNIS habitat classes into Broad Habitats (BH) and Land Use (LUSE) classes.

Table 4.3 Classification of Land Cover Scotland (LCS88) classes into Broad Habitats (BH) and Land Use (LUSE) classes.

Table 4.4 Classification of Land Cover Map 2015 (LCM15) classes into Broad Habitats (BH) and Land Use (LUSE) classes.

Table 4.5 Classification of EFFIS Fuel Type groups into Broad Habitats (BH) and Land Use (LUSE) classes.

Table 4.6 Matrix showing the process filtering the IRS fire incidents and selecting wildfires. Counts of fire incidents for LUSE classes based on IRS Property Types given in brackets.

Table 4.7 Counts and respective proportions (in %) of IRS fire incidents falling outside and within the boundaries of settlements in Scotland.

Table 4.8 Agreement (%) of individual Broad Habitat (BH) classifications between BHs for the IRS Level 3 Property Types and respective BHs for the EUNIS habitat types, Land Cover Scotland 1988 (LCS88) classes, Land Cover Map 2015 (LCM15) classes and European Fuel Types Map (EFFIS FT), and overall agreement for all BHs for each dataset.

Table 5.1 Yearly counts and monthly proportions of IRS wildfires for years 2009 to 2020.

Table 5.2 Yearly counts and monthly proportions of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 for years 2009 to 2020.

Table 5.3 Counts of IRS wildfires at Broad Habitat (BH) level classified from Level 3 Property Types for years 2009 to 2020.

Table 5.4 Counts of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 at Broad Habitat (BH) level classified from Level 3 Property Types for years 2009 to 2020.

Table 5.5 Counts of IRS wildfires Broad Habitats (BH) classified from LCS88 classes for years 2009 to 2020.

Table 5.6 Counts of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 at Broad Habitats (BH) level classified from LCS88 classes for years 2009 to 2020.

Table 5.7 Monthly proportions (in %) of IRS wildfires per Broad Habitat (BH) classified from Level 3 Property Types for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.8 Monthly proportions (in %) of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 per Broad Habitat (BH) classified from Level 3 Property Types for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.9 Monthly proportions (in %) of IRS wildfires per Broad Habitat (BH) classified from LCS88 classes for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.10 Monthly proportions (in %) of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 per Broad Habitat (BH) classified from LCS88 classes for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.11 Daily counts of IRS wildfires per Broad Habitat (BH) classified from Level 3 Property Types for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.12 Daily counts of IRS wildfires per Broad Habitat (BH) classified from LCS88 classes for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.13 Daily counts of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 per Broad Habitat (BH) classified from Level 3 Property Types for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.14 Daily counts of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 per Broad Habitat (BH) classified from LCS88 classes for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.15 Daily counts and proportions (in %, brackets) of IRS wildfires per recorded motive.

Table 5.16 Daily counts and proportions (in %, brackets) of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2per recorded motive.

Table 5.17 Total counts and proportions of cause of ignition per motive of IRS wildfires.

Table 5.18 Total counts and proportions of cause of ignition per motive of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Table 5.19 Total counts and proportions of ignition sources per motive of IRS wildfires.

Table 5.20 Total counts and proportions of ignition sources per motive of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Table 5.21 Total counts and proportions of first item ignited per motive of IRS wildfires.

Table 5.22 Total counts and proportions of first item ignited per motive of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Table 5.23 Total counts and proportions of items causing fire spread per motive of IRS wildfires.

Table 5.24 Daily counts and proportions of items causing spread per motive of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2.

Table 5.25 Counts of IRS wildfire Broad Habitats (BHs) classified from Level 3 Property Types per recorded Damage Area (DA) group: None; 0-100 m2; 100-1,000 m2 and >1,000 m2.

Table 5.26 Counts of IRS wildfire Broad Habitats (BHs) classified from LCS88 classes per recorded Damage Area (DA): 0-100 m2; 100-1,000 m2 and >1,000 m2.

Table 5.27 Description of the 8-fold Urban Rural (UR) classification system.

Table 5.28 Total counts and yearly proportions (in %) of IRS wildfires per Local Authority (LA) for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.29 Total counts and yearly proportions (in %) of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 per Local Authority (LA) for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.30 Total counts and monthly proportions (%) of IRS wildfires per Local Authority (LA) for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.31 Total counts and monthly proportions (in %) of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 per Local Authority (LA) for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.32 Total counts and daily proportions of IRS wildfires per Local Authority (LA) for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.33 Total counts and daily proportions (in %) of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 per Local Authority (LA) for the 2009-2020 period.

Table 5.34 Total count of IRS wildfires and proportions (in %) of Broad Habitat (BH) types classified from Level 3 Property Types per Local Authority (LA).

Table 5.35 Total count of IRS wildfires and proportions (in %) of Broad Habitat (BH) types classified from LCS88 classes per Local Authority (LA).

Table 5.36 Total count of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 and proportions (in %) of Broad Habitat (BH) types classified from Level 3 Property Types per Local Authority (LA).

Table 5.37 Total count of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 and proportions (in %) of Broad Habitat (BH) types classified from LCS88 classes per Local Authority (LA).

Table 5.38 Total count of IRS wildfires and proportions (in %) of recorded motive per Local Authority (LA).

Table 5.39 Total count of IRS wildfires with damage area greater than 1,000 m2 and proportions (in %) of recorded motive per Local Authority (LA).

Table 5.40 Total count of IRS wildfires and proportions (in %) of recorded Damage Area (DA) group: None; 0-100 m2; 100-1,000 m2 and >1,000 m2 per Local Authority (LA).

Table 5.41 Cluster groupings of each Local Authority (LA).

Table 6.1 Count of burnt area polygons per Local Authority (LA) and minimum, median, mean and maximum nearest distances (in metres) between polygons and corresponding IRS wildfires.

Table 6.2 Agreement (%) of individual Broad Habitat (BH) classifications between BHs classified from the recorded IRS Level 3 Property Types and dominant (i.e. covering greater area) BHs of burnt area polygons using the EUNIS habitat types, Land Cover Scotland 1988 (LCS88) classes, Land Cover Map 2015 (LCM15) classes and European Fuel Types 2000 (FT2000), and overall agreement for all BHs for each dataset. Results do not include polygons with bogs and peatlands as dominant cover.

Table 7.1 Monthly counts of EFFIS burnt area polygons for the countries included in the analysis.

Table 7.2 Minimum, median, mean and maximum recorded burnt areas (in hectares) for the countries included in the analysis.

Table 7.3 Number of EFFIS burnt area polygons with dominant covers of main fuel type groups for the countries included in the analysis.

Table 8.1 Description of selected variables.

Table 8.2 Descriptive statistics of numeric covariates in the locations of the Highland LA IRS wildfires.

Table 8.3 Accuracy statistics of the ignition risk model calculated using the independent sample points.

Contact

Email: alison.seton@gov.scot

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