Assessing Fire Risk in Wildland–Urban Interface Regions Using a Machine Learning Method and GIS data: The Example of Istanbul’s European Side

Abstract

Like many places around the world, the wildland–urban interface areas surrounding urban regions are subject to variable levels of fire risk, threatening the natural habitats they contact. This risk has been assessed by various authors using many different methods and numerical models. Among these approaches, machine learning models have been successfully applied to determine the weights of criteria in risk assessment and risk prediction studies. In Istanbul, data have been collected for areas that are yet to be urbanized but are foreseen to be at risk using geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing technologies based on fires that occurred between 2000 and 2021. Here, the land use/land cover (LULC) characteristics of the region were examined, and machine learning techniques, including random forest (RF), extreme gradient boosting (XGB), and light gradient boosting (LGB) models, were applied to classify the factors that affect fires. The RF model yielded the best results, with an accuracy of 0.70, an F1 score of 0.71, and an area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.76. In the RF model, the grouping between factors that initiate fires and factors that influence the spread of fires was distinct, and this distinction was also somewhat observable in the other two models. Risk scores were generated through the multiplication of the variable importance values of the factors and their respective layer values, culminating in a risk map for the region. The distribution of risk is in alignment with the number of fires that have previously occurred, and the risk in wildland–urban interface areas was found to be significantly higher than the risk in wildland areas alone.