Wildfire univariate and bivariate characteristics simulation based on multiple machine learning models and applicability analysis of wildfire models

Abstract

Wildfires can significantly impact regional and global climate, human health, and ecosystems, making it necessary to model their behavior and predict their outcomes. With increasing global temperatures and changing precipitation patterns due to climate change, the frequency and intensity of wildfires are expected to increase, heightening the requirement for accurate wildfire simulation models to support wildfire management and mitigation efforts. However, the interactions between the causative variables of wildfires and the wildfire bivariate characteristics have not been explored in wildfire modeling. Therefore, the copula function was applied to solve the complicated and nonlinear relationship of the dependence structure in wildfire statistics and the relationship between wildfire causative variables. Subsequently, we modeled wildfire characteristics globally using six machine learning models and compared the performances of the models. Specifically, the main conclusions were obtained as follows: (1) among the six machine learning models, long short-term memory had the best applicability in simulating wildfire characteristics; (2) when there were 4 predictors, the accuracy of wildfire characteristic simulation reached the average level; and (3) long short-term memory achieved excellent model performance within 56% of the global climate sub-regions. Overall, this analysis provides a reference to better understand wildfire and contributes to wildfire management.