A new Methodology in Modeling Forest Fire Spread Using Cellular Automata

Abstract

There is a wild vast forest fire every year, causing irrecoverable losses and changing the soil, living organisms and ecosystems of the region. Thus, modeling the spread mechanism of fires in forests seems necessary for disaster managements. This study analysis the most commonly used fire spread models and improves them by a more real circular model of fire spread. The model uses cellular automata (CA) to demonstrate fire spreads on circular fronts. The cellular model is based on Moore neighborhood. Although numerous factors can affect the spread of fire, this study uses fire spread rate, wind speed, wind direction and topography. Several scenarios are used to assess the proposed model. The implementation confirmed the efficiency of the model in comparison with others. The proposed model can be applied in both homogeneous as well as heterogeneous forests.