Douglas Woolford

Associate Professor of Environmetrics
Office: WSC 221
Phone: 519-661-2111 x88326
Email: dwoolfor@uwo.ca


Ph.D. University of Western Ontario, 2007

 

Wildland-Fire-Logo4.jpg

Research Areas

  • Data science and analytics
  • Forest and wildland fire science
  • Forest and wildland fire management
  • Fire occurrence prediction, risk assessment and risk modelling
  • Stochastic models and applied statistics
  • Education in the mathematical and statistical sciences

Research Lab Members

Postdoctoral

Ph.D.

  • Daniel Guerrero (co-supervised with Matt Davison)
  • Johanna de Haan Ward (co-supervised with Simon Bonner)
  • Nathan Phelps (co-supervised with Daniel Lizotte)
  • Zixuan Yang

Masters

  • Luc Benoit
  • Dinithi De Silva (co-supervised with Patricia Corcoran)
  • Jessica Dobbin

Honours Thesis

  • Matthew Jones

Publications

  • Hanes, C.C., Wotton, M., Bourgeau-Chavez, L., Woolford, D.G., Belair, S., Martell, D., & Flannigan, M. (2023). Evaluation of new methods for drought estimation in the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System. International Journal of Wildland Fire (in press).

  • Wheatley, M., Wotton, B.M., Woolford, D.G., Martell, D.L., & Johnston, J.M. (2023). Modelling decisions concerning the dispatch of airtankers for initial attack on forest fires in Ontario, Canada. Canadian Journal of Forest Research (e-First)  https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2022-0225

  • Granville, K., Woolford, D.G., Dean, C.B., Boychuk, D., & McFayden, C.B. (2022). On the Selection of an Interpolation Method with an Application to the Fire Weather Index in Ontario, Canada. Environmetrics. http://doi.org/10.1002/env.2758 

  • Wheatley, M., Wotton, B.M., Woolford, D.G., Martell, D.L., Johnston, J.M. (2022). Modelling initial attack success on wildfires supported by air attack in Ontario, Canada. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 31(8), 774-785. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF22006

  • Dean, C.B., El-Shaarawi, A.H., Esterby, S.R., Mills-Flemming, J., Routeledge, R.D., Taylor, S.W., Woolford, D.G., Zidek, J.V., & Zwiers, F.W. (2022). Canadian Contributions to Environmetrics. Canadian Journal of Statistics, 50(4): 1355-1386. https://doi.org/10.1002/cjs.11743

  • Granville, K., Woolford, D.G., Dean, C.B., McFayden, C.B. (2022). A Case-Crossover Study of the Impact of the Modifying Industrial Operations Protocol on the Frequency of Industrial Forestry-Caused Wildland Fires in Ontario, Canada. Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13253-022-00497-z

  • Granville, K., Woolford, D. G., Dean, C. B., & McFayden, C. B. (2022). Wildland fire prevention: the impact of the Modifying Industrial Operations Protocol on the growth of industrial forestry-caused wildland fires in Ontario, Canada. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 31(9): 825-834 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF22074

  • Becker, D. G., Woolford, D. G., & Dean, C. B. (2022). Assessing dependence between frequency and severity through shared random effects. PLOS ONE, 17(8), e0271904. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271904

  • Hanes, C. C., Wotton, M., Woolford, D. G., Martell, D. L., & Flannigan, M. (2022). Mapping organic layer thickness and fuel load of the boreal forest in Alberta, Canada. Geoderma, 417, 115827.

  • Phelps, N., & Woolford, D.G. (2021). Comparing calibrated statistical and machine learning methods for wildland fire occurrence prediction: a case study of human-caused fires in Lac La Biche, Alberta, Canada. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 30(11): 850-870. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF20139 

  • Boychuk, D., McFayden, C.B., Woolford, D.G., Wotton, M., Stacey, A., Evens, J., Hanes, C., and Wheatley, M. (2021). Considerations for Categorizing and Visualizing Numerical Information: A Case Study of Fire Occurrence Prediction Models in the Province of Ontario, Canada. Fire, 4, 50. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire4030050

  • Kotsopoulos, D., Weatherby, C., & Woolford, D.G. (2021). Using guided notes to support learning in first year calculus. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 53(6): 1629-1644, https://doi.org/10.1080/0020739X.2021.1910742

  • Phelps, N., Woolford, D.G. (2021). Guidelines for effective evaluation and comparison of wildland fire occurrence prediction models. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 30(4): 225-240.  https://doi.org/10.1071/WF20134   

  • Woolford, D.G., Martell, D.L., McFayden, C.B., Evens, J., Stacey, A., Wotton, B.M., Boychuk, D. (2021). The Development and Implementation of a Human-Caused Wildland Fire Occurrence Prediction System for the Province of Ontario, Canada. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 51: 303-325.  https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2020-0313 

  • Becker, D.G., Woolford, D.G., Dean, C.B. (2020). Algorithmically Deconstructing Shot Locations as a Method for Shot Quality in Hockey. Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, 17(2): 107-115.  https://doi.org/10.1515/jqas-2020-0012

  • Savage, D.W., Woolford, D.G., Weaver, B., Simpson, M., Wood, D., Ohle, R. (2020). Predicting patient admission from the emergency department using triage administrative and diagnostic investigation data. International Journal of Extreme Automation and Connectivity in Healthcare. 2: 1-11.

  • Hanes, C., Wotton, M., Woolford, D.G., Martell, D., and Flannigan, M. (2020). Preceding fall drought conditions and overwinter precipitation effects on spring wildland fire activity. Fire, 3(2), 24 (16 pages).

  • Boychuk, D., McFayden, C.B., Evens, J., Shields, J., Stacey, A., Woolford, D.G., Wotton, M., Johnston, D., Leonard, D., McLarty, D. (2020). Assembling and customizing multiple fire weather forecasts for burn probability and other fire management applications in Ontario, Canada. Fire, 3(2), 16. (20 pages).

  • Nadeem, K., Taylor, S.W., Woolford, D.G., and Dean, C.B. (2020). Mesoscale Spatio-temporal Predictive Models of Daily Human and Lightning-caused Wildland Fires in British Columbia. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 29, 11-27.

  • McFayden, C.B., Woolford, D.G., Stacey, A., Boychuk, D., Johnston, J.M., Wheatley, M.J., and Martell, D.L. (2019) Risk assessment for wildland fire aerial detection patrol route planning in Ontario, Canada. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 29, 28-41.

  • McFayden, C.B., Boychuk, D., Woolford, D.G., and Wheatley, M.J. (2019). Impacts of wildland fire effects on resources and assets through expert elicitation to support fire response decisions. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 28, 885-900.

  • Morin, A.A., Albert-Green, A., Woolford, D.G., and Martell, D.L. (2019). Frailty Models for the Control Time of Wildland Fires in the Former Intensive Fire Management Zone of Ontario, Canada. Journal of Environmental Statistics, 9(5), 1-16.

  • Tymstra, C., Woolford, D.G., and Flannigan, M.D. (2019). Statistical Surveillance Thresholds for Enhanced Situational Awareness of Spring Wildfire Activity in Alberta, Canada. Journal of Environmental Statistics, 9(4), 1-26.

  • Becker, D.G., Braun, W.J., Dean, C.B., and Woolford, D.G. (2019). Visualizing Multivariate Time Series of Aerial Fire Fighting Data. Journal of Environmental Statistics, 9(1), 1-16.

  • Wang, X.J., Thompson, R.J., Braun, W.J., and Woolford, D.G. (2019). Fitting a Stochastic Fire Spread Model to Data. Advances in Statistical Climatology, Meteorology and Oceanography, 5, 57-66.

  • Paudel, A., Martell, D.L., and Woolford, D.G. (2019). Factors that affect the timing of the dispatch of initial attack resources to forest fires in northeastern Ontario, Canada. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 28(1), 15-24.

  • Xi, D.Z., Taylor, S.W., Woolford, D.G., and Dean, C.B. (2019) Statistical models of key components of wildfire risk. Annual Review of Statistics and its Applications, 6, 197-222.

  • Weatherby, C., Kotsopoulos, D., Woolford, D.G., and Khattak, L. (2018) A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Mathematics Education Practices at Canadian Universities. Journal of Teaching and Learning, 12, 1-20.

  • Morin, A.A., Albert-Green, A., Woolford, D.G., and Martell, D.L. (2015). The use of survival analysis methods to model the control time of forest fires in Ontario, Canada. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 24, 964-973.

  • Savage, D.W., Woolford, D.G., Weaver, B., and Wood, D. (2015). Developing emergency department physician shift schedules optimized to meet patient demand. Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine, 17, 3-12.

  • Drekic, S., Stanford, D.A., Woolford, D.G., and McAlister, V.C. (2015). A model for deceased-donor transplant queue waiting times. Queueing Systems, 79, 87-115.

  • Woolford, D.G., Dean, C.B., Martell, D.L., Cao, J. and Wotton, B.M. (2014). Lightning-caused forest fire risk in northwestern Ontario, Canada is increasing and associated with anomalies in fire-weather. Environmetrics, 25, 406-416.

  • Albert-Green, A., Braun, W.J., Martell, D.L., and Woolford, D.G. (2014). Visualization tools for assessing the Markov property: sojourn times in the Ontario Fire Weather Index. Environmetrics, 25, 417-430.

  • Taylor, S.W., Woolford, D.G., Dean, C.B., and Martell, D.L. (2013). Wildfire prediction to inform fire management at multiple scales: statistical science challenges. Statistical Science, 28, 586-615.

  • Savage, D., Wotton, B.M., Martell, D.L., and Woolford, D.G. (2013). The impact of uncertainty concerning historical burned area estimates on forest management planning. Forest Science, 59, 578-588.

  • Braun, W.J. and Woolford, D.G. (2013). Assessing a stochastic fire spread simulator. Journal of Environmental Informatics, 22, 1-12.

  • Albert-Green, A., Dean, C.B., Martell, D.L., and Woolford, D.G. (2013). A methodology for investigating trends in changes in the timing of the fire season with applications to lightning-caused forest fires in Alberta and Ontario, Canada. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 43(1), 39-45.

  • Dean, C.B., Braun, W.J., Martell, D.L., and Woolford, D.G. (2012). Interdisciplinary training in a collaborative research environment. Pages 69 - 73 in Chrisman and Wachowicz (Eds.), The Added Value of Scientific Networking: Perspectives from the GEOIDE Network Members 1998-2012. GEOIDE Network, Quebec, Canada.

  • Woolford, D.G., Bellhouse, D.R., Braun, W.J., Dean, C.B., Martell, D.L., and Sun, J. (2011). A spatio-temporal model for people-caused forest fire occurrence in the Romeo Malette forest. Journal of Environmental Statistics, 2, 1-26.

  • Woolford, D.G., Cao, J., Dean, C.B. and Martell, D.L. (2010). Characterizing temporal changes in forest fire ignitions: looking for climate change signals in a region of the Canadian boreal forest. Environmetrics, 21, 789-800.

  • Vilar, L., Woolford, D.G., Martell, D.L. and Martin, M. (2010). A model for predicting human-caused wildfire occurrence in the region of Madrid, Spain. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 19, 325-337.

  • Braun, W.J., Jones, B., Lee, J., Woolford, D.G., and Wotton, B.M. (2010). Forest fire risk assessment: an illustrative example from Ontario, Canada. Journal of Probability and Statistics, 2010: Article ID 823018, 26 pages. doi:10.1155/2010/823018.

  • Woolford, D.G., Braun, W.J., Dean, C.B. and Martell, D.L. (2009). Site-specific seasonal baselines for fire risk in Ontario. GEOMATICA, 63, 355-363.

  • Zhou, L., Braun, W.J., Woolford, D.G., and Wotton, B.M. (2009). A simulation study of predicting flush date. Communications in Statistics - Simulation and Computation, 38, 1071-1082.

  • Woolford, D.G., Stanford, D.A., Kulperger, R.J., Boychuk, D., and Wotton, B.M. (2008). Erlangian approximations for the transient analysis of a fluid queue model for fire perimeter.  INFOR, 47, 305-317.

  • Ramaswami, V., Woolford, D.G., and Stanford, D.A. (2008). The erlangization method for Markovian fluid flows. Annals of Operations Research, 160, 215-225.

  • Woolford, D.G. and Braun, W.J. (2007). Convergent data sharpening for the identification and tracking of spatial-temporal centers of lightning activity. Environmetrics, 18, 461-479.

  • Stanford, D.A., Latouche, G., Woolford, D.G., Boychuk, D., and Hunchak, A. (2005). Fire perimeter analyzed as a fluid queue. Stochastic Models, 21, 631-642.

  • Drekic, S. and Woolford, D.G. (2005). A preemptive priority queue with balking. European Journal of Operational Research, 164, 387-401.