Operational and Temporal Correlates of Wildfire Size: A 10-Year Analysis from Central Anatolia, Türkiye

Background: Administrative wildfire records can characterize operational and temporal patterns, but causal interpretation requires caution when meteorological, fuel, topographic, and accessibility variables are unavailable. This study examined factors associated with wildfire size within the jurisdiction of the Kayseri Regional Directorate of Forestry, Türkiye, during 2016–2025. Methods: A total of 364 wildfire records were analyzed. Large-fire risk (>5 ha) was modeled with Firth-penalized logistic regression because of sparse events and separation. Burned area was analyzed using a two-part model: Firth logistic regression for zero versus positive burned area, followed by a Gamma generalized linear model with a log link for positive burned area (n = 333). Seasons were treated as categorical variables using calendar definitions, and the administrative vehicle-count variable was reported descriptively because its timing could not be verified as initial dispatch. Mann–Kendall trend tests, corrected seasonal post hoc comparisons, and exploratory ROC analysis were also performed. Results: Fifty-six fires (15.4%) exceeded 5 ha, and 31 records had zero burned area. Negligence/carelessness was the recorded cause in 91.5% of incidents. In the Firth large-fire model, initial response time was not independently associated with large-fire odds (OR = 1.007, 95% CI 0.989–1.026; p = 0.452), and no modeled predictor reached statistical significance. In the positive-area Gamma component, autumn fires had greater conditional mean burned area than summer fires (mean ratio [MR] = 1.683, 95% CI 1.233–2.295; p = 0.001), whereas initial response time was not statistically significant (MR = 1.012, 95% CI 0.998–1.026; p = 0.097). Seasonal distributions differed overall (Kruskal–Wallis H = 12.759, p = 0.005; epsilon-squared = 0.027), with the Holm-corrected autumn-versus-summer comparison remaining significant (p = 0.035). Response time alone showed weak discrimination for large fires (AUC = 0.562, bootstrap 95% CI 0.489–0.636); the 18 min value was therefore retained only as a dataset-specific exploratory reference. The response-time trend was not statistically significant (tau = −0.467, p = 0.073), and excluding 2025 further attenuated it (tau = −0.333, p = 0.260). Conclusions: The corrected analyses support seasonal heterogeneity, particularly greater positive burned area in autumn, but do not support a causal or independently significant response-time effect after conservative model specification. Future wildfire-response analyses should integrate weather, fuels, terrain, access, distance, and incident conditions at detection.