Complexity Explorer Santa Few Institute

Role of Long-Range Propagation in Wildfire Models

mentors: Sid Redner

A particularly simple model for wildfires is the following: Each lattice site can be occupied by nothing, a live tree, or a burning tree. Each empty site turns into a tree at a rate that mimics tree growth; this leads to the gradual formation of forests of connected trees. There is also a very small rate of lightning. If lightning strikes a tree within a forest, all the trees in this forest burn down immediately. This simple model leads to self-organized critical behavior with a power-law distribution of fire sizes. In reality, a wildfire can jump to another disconnected forest because of embers that are carried by the wind. In turn, the wind is driven by the fires themselves so that a larger fire causes embers to travel larger distances. The phenomenology of this model with long-range fire propagation seems quite rich. The simplest setting of fire propagation in one dimension (and possibly two dimensions) seems suitable for a summer project by a student with some programming and visualization skills.