View article

Understanding the spatial patterns of fire ignitions and fire sizes is essential for understanding fire regimes. Although previous studies have documented associations of human-caused fire ignitions with road corridors, less consideration has been given to understanding the multiple influences of roads on the fire regime at a broader landscape-scale. Therefore, we examined the difference between lightning- and human-caused fire ignitions in relation to forest road corridors and other anthropogenic and biophysical factors in the eastern Cascade Mountains of Washington State. We used geographical information systems and case-control logistic regression models to assess the relative importance of these explanatory variables that influence the locations of lightning versus human-caused ignitions. We found that human-caused ignitions were concentrated close to roads, in high road density areas, and near the …