Comparison of the BurnP3+ and Provincial Strategic Threat Analysis Wildfire Threat Models: Determining the influence of topographical features and fuel types on their resulting threat rating assignments and the accuracy of their predictions in Northeastern British Columbia

These smaller-scale, detailed models will allow for more confident decisions to be made with regards to resource allocation for wildfire prevention, preparedness and mitigation strategies. In British Columbia, the Provincial Strategic Threat Analysis (PSTA) is the current wildfire threat model used to classify wildfire risk.

A new threat model, BurnP3+, is being tested as an alternative method for predicting wildfire threat across the province. This study compared the two models at regional and local scales, using seven study areas located across northeastern BC. Various visual, descriptive and spatial analyses were conducted to determine if the older, more general, PSTA model is still accurately evaluating wildfire threat or if the more detailed, stochastic, BurnP3+ is better overall and to assess the influence of a variety of topographical features and fuel types on their threat rating dissemination.