Spatial patterns of lightning-caused forest fires in Ontario, 1976–1998

The spatial pattern of forest fire locations is of interest for fire occurrence prediction and for understanding the role of fire in landscape processes. A spatial statistical analysis of lightning-caused fires in the province of Ontario, between 1976 and 1998, was carried out to investigate the spatial pattern of fires, the way they depart from randomness, and the scales at which spatial correlation occurs. Fire locations were found to be spatially clustered. Kernel estimation of the spatial pattern of lightning strikes on days when the dryness of the forest floor exceeded a designated threshold yielded clusters in the same areas as the lightning fire clusters.