A Comparative Review on Wildfire Simulators

Phenomena in ecosystems such as forest fires, oil spills, tornados, etc., are complex processes both in time and space. Understanding their dynamics in order to predict their future states is a challenging procedure involving the propagation of several events concerning, e.g., the transfer of energy or material. A common solution used to study such phenomena is the utilization of discrete event models and simulators. Among the phenomena studied by researchers so far, of particular interest and importance, is the forecasting of forest fire propagation since life on earth is greatly dependent on healthy forests. This paper is focused on the investigation of existing simulator models applicable in forecasting forest fire propagation. Twenty-three simulators were found in the literature and are presented here. The comparison discussion concludes with the FARSITE simulator model which is the one that stands out from the rest, and for this reason, it is investigated in depth and evaluated in a test environment.