Workflow Narrative

Wildfire Fuel Risk Analysis

Problem It Solves

Where are the highest-priority fuel and spread-risk areas, and what dominant fuel conditions drive those zones?

Who It Is For

Wildfire planning teams, utility risk programs, and fuels management analysts.

Primary User

Utility wildfire mitigation teams, land-management agencies, and hazard/risk operations groups.

What It Does

Classifies sparse, surface, ladder, and canopy fuel classes from optical and optional structure inputs.
Computes moisture index and ladder-fuel continuity diagnostics.
Builds a terrain-amplified wildfire risk matrix with zone-level risk tiers.
Emits risk-zone vector outputs and summary contracts for operations planning.

How It Works

Extracts required optical bands and computes NDMI (if SWIR available) or NDWI proxy fallback.
Uses NDVI, moisture thresholds, and optional biomass proxy to assign fuel class per cell.
Computes ladder continuity and combines fuel risk with optional slope/aspect spread amplifiers.
Produces a clipped risk score in [0,1] and polygonized risk zones with dominant fuel and risk tier.
Indicative formula: risk ~= (base_fuel_risk + dryness_boost) * slope_amp * aspect_amp.

Why It Wins

Packages moisture, structure, terrain amplification, and zone-level risk outputs in a single reproducible workflow.

Typical Buying Trigger

Seasonal mitigation planning and risk-tier prioritization require consistent spatial evidence outputs.

Typical Presets

conservative for lower sensitivity and tighter risk escalation.
balanced for default planning workflows.
aggressive for early-warning and preventative treatment prioritization.

Inputs

Parameter	Optional	Description
optical_bundle	no	Multispectral raster containing red/NIR and optionally SWIR bands.
red_band_index, nir_band_index	yes	Red and NIR band indices. Defaults: 0, 1.
swir_band_index	yes	Optional SWIR index; enables NDMI moisture estimation when available.
biomass_proxy	yes	Optional LiDAR biomass/height proxy used to refine fuel class and ladder continuity signals.
slope, aspect	yes	Optional terrain slope/aspect rasters used for spread amplification terms.
profile: conservative \| balanced \| aggressive	yes	Sensitivity profile controlling class/risk thresholds.
zone_block_cells	yes	Pixel block size used for risk-zone polygon aggregation. Defaults to `20`.
output_prefix	yes	Prefix used to name output artifacts.

Outputs

Parameter	Type	Description
moisture_index	GeoTIFF	NDMI/NDWI moisture response raster (`*_moisture_index.tif`).
fuel_load_class	GeoTIFF	Fuel class code raster (sparse/surface/ladder/canopy) (`*_fuel_load_class.tif`).
ladder_fuel_continuity	GeoTIFF	Ladder continuity index surface (`*_ladder_fuel_continuity.tif`).
risk_matrix	GeoTIFF	Terrain-amplified wildfire risk score raster (`*_risk_matrix.tif`).
risk_zones	GeoPackage	Aggregated risk polygons with tier and dominant fuel attributes (`*_risk_zones.gpkg`).
summary	JSON	Machine-readable summary contract (`*_summary.json`).
html_report	HTML	Human-readable report generated from the summary contract for review and QA traceability.

Python Example

import whitebox_workflows as wbw

wbe = wbw.WbEnvironment(include_pro=True, tier="pro")

result = wbe.wildfire_fuel_loading_and_risk_matrix(
    optical_bundle="data/optical_multiband.tif",
    red_band_index=0,
    nir_band_index=1,
    swir_band_index=2,
    biomass_proxy="data/biomass_proxy.tif",
    slope="data/slope.tif",
    aspect="data/aspect.tif",
    profile="balanced",
    zone_block_cells=20,
    output_prefix="output/wildfire_risk",
)

print(result)

License Notice

Use of this function requires a license for Whitebox Workflows Professional (WbW-Pro). Please visit www.whiteboxgeo.com to purchase a license.

Project Links

WbW Homepage User Manual Learn More