Time Series Forest Fire Prediction Based on Improved Transformer

Abstract

Forest fires, severe natural disasters causing substantial damage, necessitate accurate predictive modeling to guide preventative measures effectively. This study introduces an enhanced window-based Transformer time series forecasting model aimed at improving the precision of forest fire predictions. Leveraging time series data from 2020 to 2021 in Chongli, a myriad of forest fire influencing factors were ascertained using remote sensing satellite and GIS technologies, with their interrelationships estimated through a multicollinearity test. Given the intricate nature of real-world forest fire prediction tasks, we propose a novel window-based Transformer architecture complemented by a dual time series input strategy premised on 13 influential factors. Subsequently, time series data were incorporated into the model to generate a forest fire risk prediction map in Chongli District. The model’s effectiveness was then evaluated using various metrics, including accuracy (ACC), root mean square error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE), and compared with traditional deep learning methods. Our model demonstrated superior predictive performance (ACC = 91.56%, RMSE = 0.37, MAE = 0.05), harnessing spatial background information efficiently and effectively utilizing the periodicity of forest fire factors. Consequently, the study proves this method to be a novel and potent approach for time series fire prediction.