Department of Statistics, UCLA

In this paper a new method is described for estimating the fire interval distribution of a region using spatial-temporal fire history data. In Los Angeles County, California, detailed information on fires has been available through the use of geographic information systems (GIS) technology. The proposed estimator is applied to GIS data covering the years 1878-1996 and it is shown that fuel age appears to have a nonlinear threshold-type relationship with burn area. The estimator is shown to be more stable than previous estimators and to have good finite and large sample properties.