UrbanLogiq’s Fire Analysis Tool use case visualizes fire data and assesses an area's fire risk index using records from the Minnesota Fire Incident Reporting System (MFIRS). It contains two distinct workflows:
history analysis tool
risk analysis tool
The history analysis tool generates reports and analyzes historical fire insights across time and space. The risk analysis tool helps identify high-risk zones and provides information on causes driving risk within an area of interest. Both tools include insight map visualizations, as well as tables and charts for analysis.
👁️ Note: different agency users will have different permission levels. See the data permission level summarized in the table below. If you have any questions, please email us at customersuccess@urbanlogiq.com
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How to view fire data attributes
Click on Learn More located on the side panel to open the About this Use Case panel. View detailed information about the Fire Analysis Tool workflows in the Overview tab, and information about the underlying fire data in the Data tab.
Tip ✨ : Click on any of the fire data shown on the map to see a quick summary for each fire.
History analysis: how to filter historical fire data on the map
You can apply filters to the historical MFIRS fire data on the side panel. You can filter the data by time, location, and other fire data attributes. The map will update to reflect the applied filters.
Filtering by time: Click on the Time Period field, and a calendar will pop up. This calendar will show you the available date ranges with fire data. You can click on any date shortcuts on the left side of the calendar to select data for the most recent week, month, and year. You can also fill out the fields on the top right corner to directly input the start and end date of your time query. Greyed-out dates in the calendar are dates with no available data. On the bottom left of the calendar, you can quickly see how much data is selected and available for analysis in the selected date range.
Filtering by location: Interested in fires at a specific location? You can narrow down the scope of your analysis by selecting areas from an existing area, or by drawing a custom area using the drawing tool. You can also add a buffer around the areas selected: for example, you can add a 200ft buffer around a city to study past fire events that happened within a 200ft distance from the city boundary.
Filtering by fire attribute: Looking for fires with injuries? In the Filters section, click on +Add to view the available fire attributes filter and apply the filter as desired to the data on the map.
History analysis: how to aggregate fire data by geospatial boundaries on the map
Use the map visualization feature, aggregate by, in the Legend at the top right corner of the map to aggregate fire data over a set of areas. This feature allows you to sum up fire events using available area options ( Emergency Zones, Bl, Cities, or Counties) and visualize the aggregated values on the map.
History analysis: how to color fire data by fire attributes on the map
Use the map visualization feature, color-by, to color fire data on the map by attributes such as highest human casualty severity to create dynamic heat maps.
👀 Note:
the color-by options might differ when fire data is aggregated on the map.
the grey data on the map when applying color by means there is no information for the selected attribute.
History analysis: how to generate, configure, and export a historical report
Click on the big blue 'Generate Report' button on the bottom of the side panel to generate a historical report. The report contains fire count breakdowns and data trends of interest.
The report header section summarizes the filters applied to create the report. You can reorganize any tile in the report simply by dragging it around. You can also change the plot type for each tile and choose your preferred method of visualizing the data.
The report also provides a comparison of the statistics of various metrics between the selected area of interest and the state average for benchmarking. The green bars in the bar chart represent the state average and the blue bars in the bar chart represent the statistics for your selected area. Toggle between tabular forms and charts to view the percentage and count of fire events.
You can export the report as a PDF, and the underlying data as a .xlsx or .csv spreadsheet by clicking on the Export button in the report header.
👀 Note: a single fire may be counted multiple times under different attributed values due to fire exposure effects. For example, a single fire may be associated with multiple properties if the fire spread beyond the boundaries of a single property. Therefore, the sum of the values for all bars on a chart may not always add up to the total number of fires represented by the chart.
Risk analysis: what is the Risk Index, and how is it evaluated?
The Risk Index is evaluated at the block group level. It is calculated by extracting the density of fire occurrences within this block group for the past 6 years, taking the logarithm of this number, and scaling the result so that the block group with the highest fire density gets an index of 100, and the block group with the lowest fire density receives an index of 0.
It is important to note that the risk index is a ranking index. Therefore, a risk index value of 0 does not mean zero risk.
Risk analysis: how to generate and interpret a fire risk report
Upon loading the Risk tab, the map visualizes the fire risk index values at the block group level for the state of Minnesota, and a Fire Risk Report for the entire state is loaded for quick insights.
In particular, the fire risk report includes:
The top likely causes of fire within the area of reporting. These causes are extracted by a network algorithm that infers the conditional probability of fires for a set of marginal causes using Bayesian techniques.
The average Risk Index value in the chosen region and the distribution of the Risk Index values across its subregions. The number of subregions is determined by the aggregation selected in the Aggregate by control in the side panel.
The highest risk subregions, the risk trend, and some relevant key insights on land usage and demographics for each of them.
👀 Note: The risk trend is generated by identifying if the number of fire records is trending up or down over the past 6 years using a linear regression fit. The trend is represented as follows:
When the trend is going up, an arrow pointing upward is shown
When the trend is going down, an arrow pointing downward is shown
When there are not enough records or no significant trend is identified, no arrow is shown
You can click on the map to learn more about any block group in the map pop-up. From there, you can click on Generate Report to pull up the First Risk Report for that specific block group.
If you are interested to assess the fire risk trends for a specific area of interest, you can use the Area of Interest feature to select the area you wish to assess and report on. The generated report will contain information about the area of interest and the subregions (such as block groups) within it. The number of subregions included in the area of interest selected is displayed in the report header.
Final Notes
That's all for now, log into the platform and start your fire analysis. Have fun exploring!
As always, please reach out to us if you need any help. Either chat with us through the 'get help' chat box located on the bottom left corner of the UrbanLogiq platform or send your questions to customersuccess@urbanlogiq.com! 🤝