Karen Short, an research ecologist at the Forestry Organization who participated in the study and holds a historical database of national forest fire reports, says that it is necessary to understand the reason for the start of fires to prevent them and public education. Strategic prevention seems to be effective: According to the National Association of Fire Conservation, home fires in the United States have been reduced by half by half since the 1980s.
In 2024, the shortcuts expanded their forest fires to provide more useful information for researchers, such as climate, altitude, population density and time of fire. We have to record those things in the data to track them over time. We still follow things from the 1900s.
According to Short, the process of forest fires in the western United States has changed with human activities. In recent decades, flammables from power lines, fireworks and firearms have become more common, unlike rail fires and wooden factories that were once common.
The study showed that vehicles and equipment are probably the number one culprit and have potentially caused 21 % of forest fires without any known cause since 1992. And the increasing number of fires as a result of accidents and random flammability – whether by smoking, shooting or fire – make up another 18 %. In 2017, the selection of a couple from Arizona from the blue smoke fireworks for the child showed a celebration that lit the fire factory and burned nearly 47,000 hectares.
But these are not definitive results. Machine learning models, such as models used for study, are taught to predict the probability of a cause of fire, rather than prove that a particular flammability has happened. Although the study model showed a 90 % accuracy in the selection between thunderstorms or human activity as a flammable source during the fire on fire for reasons, but more difficult to determine which of the 11 possible human behavior is to blame. It was only half the time.
Yavar Pourmohammad, a doctoral researcher at the Boyce State University, who led the study, says knowing the possible causes of fire can help officials warn people before the actual start of the fire. “This can point to people, which is the most important thing to take care of,” he said. “Perhaps in the future, artificial intelligence can become a reliable tool for real -world action.”
Cindulacies, Professor USC, says Purmohammad’s and Short’s research is important to understand how the risks change. He supports preventive measures such as burying the underground electricity lines, where the wind cannot affect them.
A 2018 study showed that the fires caused by the power lines cut – such as the camp in Paradise, California, are on the rise in the same year. Although the authors point out that although electricity lines are not the cause of many fires, they are related to larger parts of burnt land.
“We need to really make sure that our societies are more flexible against climate change,” Cynulakis said. As we can see in the severe conditions of Los Angeles, fire extinguishers alone do not do so.
