Evaluation of geographically weighted logistic model and mixed effect model in forest fire prediction in northeast China

Introduction Forest fires seriously threaten the safety of forest resources and human beings. Establishing an accurate forest fire forecasting model is crucial for forest fire management. Methods We used different meteorological and vegetation factors as predictors to construct forest fire prediction models for different fire prevention periods in Heilongjiang Province in northeast China. The logistic regression (LR) model, mixed-effect logistic (mixed LR) model, and geographically weighted logistic regression (GWLR) model were developed and evaluated respectively. Results The results showed that (1) the validation accuracies of the LR model were 77.25 and 81.76% in spring and autumn fire prevention periods, respectively. Compared with the LR model, both the mixed LR and GWLR models had significantly improved the fit and validated results, and the GWLR model performed best with an increase of 6.27 and 10.98%, respectively. (2) The three models were ranked as LR model < mixed LR model < GWLR model in predicting forest fire occurrence of Heilongjiang Province. The medium-and high-risk areas of forest fire predicted by the GWLR model were distributed in western and eastern parts of Heilongjiang Province in spring, and western part in autumn, which was consistent with the observed data. (3) Driving factors had strong temporal and spatial heterogeneities; different factors had different effects on forest fire occurrence in different time periods. The relationship between driving factors and forest fire occurrence varied from positive to negative correlations, whether it’s spring or autumn fire prevention period. Discussion The GWLR model has advantages in explaining the spatial variation of different factors and can provide more reliable forest fire predictions.