AUTHOR=Taylor S. W. 

TITLE=Atmospheric Cascades Shape Wildfire Activity and Fire Management Decision Spaces Across Scales − A Conceptual Framework for Fire Prediction

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Environmental Science

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2020

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/environmental-science/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2020.527278

DOI=10.3389/fenvs.2020.527278

ISSN=2296-665X

ABSTRACT=This study uses an interdisciplinary approach to investigate variability in fire weather, fire activity and fire management decision spaces from three separate perspectives. We used time series analysis to identify periodic and quasi-periodic components of fire weather measures at second, hourly, daily, yearly, and multi-decadal resolution in 3 ecozones in western Canada. Examples of relationships between scales of fire weather and fire activity were taken from the literature. Through interviews with and observation of Canadian wildland fire management agencies we identified  20 typical decision problems which we mapped to 16 spatio-temporally cohesive decision spaces extending from incident to national levels and immediate to multi-decadal time spans. To connect these domains, we propose that space time cascades of atmospheric kinetic energy are reflected in an inverse cascade of wildfire activity, and shape the spatio-temporal dimensions of decision spaces and the pace of fire management decisions. The atmospheric cascades framework could be expanded to include ecological impacts and to link changes in forcing mechanisms such increasing atmospheric CO2, to fire management.