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International Journal of Wildland Fire International Journal of Wildland Fire Society
Journal of the International Association of Wildland Fire
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Wildfire risk assessment in Sichuan Province, China: hazard modeling approach considering different combinations of classification criteria and connection values of factor attributes

Weiting Yue https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6936-808X A , Yunji Gao https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3405-298X A * , Yu Ma https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9936-4466 A , Ziqun Ye https://orcid.org/0009-0002-3008-2206 A and Yuchun Zhang https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5355-6546 A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Fire Protection Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, No. 999 Xi’an Road, Pidu District, Chengdu, Sichuan, 611756, PR China. Email: yueweiting@my.swjtu.edu.cn, 1605810677@qq.com, 3288106165@qq.com, zycfire@swjtu.edu.cn

* Correspondence to: gyj119@swjtu.edu.cn

International Journal of Wildland Fire 34, WF25089 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF25089
Submitted: 15 April 2025  Accepted: 21 July 2025  Published: 9 September 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Background

Current wildfire risk research has primarily focused on hazard assessment, lacking a comprehensive framework that integrates vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Moreover, the influence of different statistical connection methods and classification criteria of factor attributes on hazard assessment has been overlooked.

Aim

Taking Sichuan Province, China, as the study area, a comprehensive wildfire risk assessment model was constructed based on the hazard-vulnerability-adaptive capacity framework, with special focus on the effects of differences in connection methods and classification criteria of factor attributes on the modeling performance of wildfire hazard.

Method

The impact of six connection methods integrated with logistic regression (LR) on wildfire hazard assessment was explored using wildfire samples/whole region as classification criteria. Vulnerability and adaptive capacity were analyzed using techniques for ranking preferences by similarity to ideal solutions (TOPSIS), coupled with combination weights and integrated with the optimal hazard model, resulting in an integrated risk assessment framework.

Key results and conclusions

Significant differences between hazard assessment results based on different classification criteria and connection methods were found. The Point-IV-LR model, constructed using wildfire samples as classification criteria and utilizing information value (IV) coupled LR, performed the best. The risk assessment highlighted southwestern mountains as critical high-risk areas.

Implications

These findings provide targeted wildfire prevention strategies tailored to different risk levels in Sichuan Province.

Keywords: adaptive capacity, connection method, factor attribute classification, logistic regression, Sichuan Province, TOPSIS, vulnerability, wildfire risk assessment.

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