← All researchMF-PRISM-FIRE-2026-03 / interactive guide

INTERACTIVE RESEARCH GUIDE

Do not let a merger look like growth.

Hold the incident lineage fixed while a reporting boundary absorbs a neighboring fire.

Research reportLineage-Stable Wildfire Geometry

Calculated illustration · change the inputs to inspect the mechanism.

01 / 04Guided chapter

Name the comparison object

Incident A begins at 100 area units. Neighbor B has 80. A meaningful growth comparison must specify which lineage is being followed.

Growth of incident A

Reported identity

New report area: 200
Naive growth: 100%
A-only growth: 20%

A actually grows by 20%. Comparing the merged report with old A gives 100%: the extra 80 percentage points come from B.

Apparent change = physical change + change in attribution

TRY THIS

Set A’s growth to zero and choose the merged report. The naive comparison still reports 80% growth; lineage-stable growth is zero.

What this experiment represents. Synthetic disjoint-rectangle area accounting, not a real fire perimeter, geospatial model or validated forecast. Thermal detections must not be treated as observed burned-area boundaries.

Source manuscript & release ↗Read the full explanation ↓

JavaScript is off. The initial figure above and the complete written explanation below remain available. Interactive controls require JavaScript.

1. Name the comparison object

Incident A begins at 100 area units. Neighbor B has 80. A meaningful growth comparison must specify which lineage is being followed.

2. Change the reporting boundary

A report may combine A and B into one incident. Its larger total then includes both genuine growth and the newly included neighbor.

3. Compare like with like

Tracking A alone isolates its growth. Comparing the merged total to old A alone confounds a change in identity with a change in burned area.

4. Keep geometry and observations distinct

This schematic uses disjoint rectangles with exactly computed areas. Real incident histories, merges, splits and thermal footprints need a much stricter geometry and provenance contract.

Wildfire Intelligence · Research Paper

Lineage-Stable Wildfire Geometry

Sharp growth bounds, detection-footprint witnesses, and shared-history evaluation

Research reportMF-PRISM-FIRE-2026-03 / v0.2

Define fire growth relative to a fixed incident lineage and compatible spatial histories, rather than combining incomparable boundaries. Finite geometry primitives and a small public scalar audit support the proposed research method.

Read the paper Release & files

Cover of Lineage-Stable Wildfire Geometry — Current public editionv0.2 · 2026-09-12

Identifier: MF-PRISM-FIRE-2026-03
Series: Wildfire Intelligence
Edition: Version 0.2
Length: 22 pages
Reserved DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22727590 (record reserved)

Plain-language guide

3 minute explanation

A plain-language summary.

The paper prevents false geometry comparisons by requiring every perimeter or detection footprint to belong to one fixed incident lineage and one compatible spatial history.

wildfiregeometryincident lineage

Wildfire records change identity over time. Incidents merge, split, are renamed, absorb neighboring fires, and switch between sensor footprints and mapped burned-area boundaries. Comparing two shapes without tracking those changes can create meaningless growth.

The paper defines a lineage-stable object first, then asks which spatial histories are compatible with the observations. Growth bounds are computed only across those shared histories.

How it works

The argument, without the notation.

Fix the incident lineage

Represent merges, splits, and attribution changes explicitly so the comparison continues to refer to the same incident object.

Separate geometry types

Distinguish thermal-detection footprints from observed or mapped burned-area boundaries.

Bound shared histories

Construct feasible histories and derive endpoint certificates for the minimum and maximum compatible growth.

What it adds

Main findings.

Apparent perimeter growth is rejected when the underlying incident lineage or geometry type changed.
Finite geometry primitives produce auditable lower and upper bounds across compatible histories.
The paper includes synthetic checks and a limited public scalar audit, not a validated operational spread model.

Scope & limits

Evidence and limitations.

Current status

Conditional geometric bounds, synthetic checks, and a limited public scalar audit. No real-fire geometry model has been validated. Research only; not an official emergency warning.

This paper defines how to measure fire growth against a fixed incident lineage. It provides geometric constructions, synthetic tests and a small audit of public data, and makes no forecast of real fire perimeters.

No real-fire geometry forecasting skill has been established.
A thermal detection footprint is not the same thing as a burned-area perimeter.
Lineage assignments and fixed support remain consequential modeling choices.

Why it matters

Why this research matters.

Merges, splits, attribution changes, and sensor footprints can make apparent perimeter growth meaningless. A lineage-stable method keeps the comparison object fixed.

Key terms

Terms used in this paper.

These are the terms needed to understand the claim. The full paper uses them more precisely.

Incident lineage

The tracked identity of a fire through renaming, merging, splitting, and attribution changes.

Perimeter

A boundary used to represent the spatial extent of a fire at a given time.

Detection footprint

The spatial support of a sensor detection, which may be larger or different from the burned area.

Feasible history

A sequence of geometries consistent with the stated observations and constraints.

Independent review

Where scrutiny should concentrate.

01
Merges, splits, attribution and fixed support.
02
Detection footprints versus observed burned-area boundaries.
03
Feasible shared histories and numerical endpoint certificates.

Publication record

Read the paper and examine the source files.

This page is a reading guide, not a substitute for the manuscript. The public record links the explanation to the paper, source package, review materials, and persistent identifier.

GitHub release Source folder

Document: Research Paper
Review status: Open for independent review
Published: 2026-09-12
DOI status: Reserved · 10.5281/zenodo.22727590
Canonical record: MF-PRISM-FIRE-2026-03

Metriq PRISM Laboratory, Lineage-Stable Wildfire Geometry, Metriq PRISM Laboratory Research Paper MF-PRISM-FIRE-2026-03, Version 0.2, 2026. Corresponding contributor: Daniel H. Jeffery, ORCID 0009-0001-1200-6042. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22727590.