Forest fire spreading

Abstract

Due to climate changes, more and more woodlands will be endangered by forest fires in the future. Because of this observation, it is very important to obtain information about how forest fires expand. In this contribution, we are interested in the interacting factors which influence forest fires. Our particular interest is the use of physical models, which consider heat and mass transfer mechanisms. As a result, we are led to a convection-diffusion-reaction problem which is nonstationary and nonlinear. Furthermore, we have a look at the different parameters, which are involved in these equations, especially at the meteorological and fuel data. Finally, we discuss some approaches to solve fire expansion numerically. Moreover, we give some simulations of forest fire spreading.