BURN: A Simulation of Forest Fire Propagation

A project is described which designed, implemented and evaluated a simulation of forest fire propagation as a cellular automaton in a parallel environment. Fire models developed by Richard Rothermel were used as the basis for propagation behavior. Furthermore, the simulation was developed to support a variety of applications including fire propagation prediction and the evaluation of fire fighting effectiveness. 1 Artificial Life, Cellular Automata & Ecological Modeling: An Introduction 1.1 Artificial Life Artificial life is the study of artificial systems that exhibit behavior characteristic of natural living systems [4]. It is a discipline which attempts to understand the laws that govern natural processes. Although the field has existed, in one form or another, for centuries, it has only recently, with the first artificial life conference in September of 1987, begun to flourish as a discipline. One of the primary reasons for such a slow start has been the need for intensive comput..