Impact of Population Density on Forest Fire Frequency

Human activity is one of the most important causes of forest fires. More than 90% of forest fires are connected with human factor. In order to quantify the impact of human activity on fire, the forest fire, land usage and population data in Japan are analyzed focusing the correlation between population density and fire frequency based on the mesh-code system of Japan. The results indicate that the relation between fire frequency and population density satisfies power law. A further analysis show that the relation is am asymptotic power law with boundary effect. The results is practical for the forest fire protection and forest fire danger prediction.