Computer simulation accurately predicts spread of wildfires

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The spread of wildfires could be predicted with a computationally efficient new method to model the combustion of individual trees.

The model, which is claimed to accurately capture wildfire behaviour at forest scale, was created by researchers at KAUST in Saudi Arabia and their international collaborators.

“Our work can help to make real forest fires more predictable by simulating potential fire scenarios with real forestry data,” said Torsten Hädrich, a Ph.D. student in Dominik Michels’ group at KAUST. “We are also able to simulate how firebreaks in forests can be used to contain fire spread.”

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According to KAUST, climate change simulations have long predicted a global rise in the prevalence and intensity of wildfires. “We titled our research paper ‘Fire in Paradise’ in reference to the northern Californian town of Paradise that was devastated by a wildfire in November 2018, resulting in more than 80 fatalities,” said research leader Michels, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in the Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering Division at KAUST.

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