A Systematic Machine Learning Methodology for Enhancing Accuracy and Reducing Computational Complexity in Forest Fire Detection
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Given the critical importance of timely forest fire detection to mitigate environmental and socio-economic consequences, this research aims to achieve high detection accuracy while maintaining real-time operational efficiency, with a particular focus on minimizing computational complexity. We propose a novel framework that systematically integrates normalization, feature selection, adaptive oversampling, and classifier optimization to enhance detection performance while minimizing computational overhead. The evaluation is conducted using three distinct Canadian forest fire datasets: Alberta Forest Fire (AFF), British Columbia Forest Fire (BCFF), and Saskatchewan Forest Fire (SFF). Initial classifier benchmarking identified the best-performing tree-based model, followed by normalization and feature selection optimization. Next, four oversampling methods were evaluated to address class imbalance. An ablation study quantified the contribution of each module to overall performance. Our targeted, stepwise strategy eliminated the need for exhaustive model searches, reducing computational cost by 97.75% without compromising accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate substantial improvements in F1-score, AFF (from 69.12% to 82.75%), BCFF (61.95% to 77.91%), and SFF (90.03% to 96.18%) alongside notable reductions in False Negative Rates compared to baseline models.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".