Forecasting of Forest Fires in Portugal Using Parallel Calculations and Machine Learning

Abstract

Forest fires that occurred in Portugal on June 18, 2017 caused several dozens of human casualties. The cause of their emergence, as well as many others that occurred in Western Europe at the same time, remained unknown. The heliocentric hypothesis has indirectly been tested, according to which charged particles are a possible cause of forest fires. We must point out that it was not possible to verify whether in this specific case the particles by reaching the ground and burning the plant mass create initial phase of the formation of flame. Therefore, we have tried to determine whether during the critical period, i.e. on June 15–19, there was a certain statistical connection between certain parameters of the solar wind (SW) and meteorological elements. Based on the hourly values of the charged particles flow, a correlation analysis was performed with hourly values of individual meteorological elements including time lag at Monte Real station. The application of the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems has shown that there is a high degree of connection between the flow of protons and the analyzed meteorological elements in Portugal. However, further verification of this hypothesis requires further laboratory testing.