A multi-scale network with percolation model to describe the spreading of forest fires

Forest fires have been a major threat to forest ecosystems and its biodiversity, as well as the environment in general, particularly in the Mediterranean regions. To mitigate fire spreading, this study aims at finding a fire-break solution for territories prone to fire occurrence. To the effect, her...

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Published inMathematics (Basel) Vol. 10; no. 4; pp. 1 - 20
Main Authors Perestrelo, Sara, Grácio, Clara, Cabral de Almeida Ribeiro, Nuno Manuel, Lopes, Luís
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI 01.02.2022
MDPI AG
Subjects
Biodiversity
Cellular automata
Epidemiology
Experiments
Fire hazards
Fire spreading
Firebreaks
Forest & brush fires
Forest fires
Laboratories
Mathematics
Morphology
multi-scale network
Neighborhoods
Percolation
Phase transitions
Serra de Ossa
Terrain
Vegetation
Wildfires
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Summary:Forest fires have been a major threat to forest ecosystems and its biodiversity, as well as the environment in general, particularly in the Mediterranean regions. To mitigate fire spreading, this study aims at finding a fire-break solution for territories prone to fire occurrence. To the effect, here follows a model to map and predict phase transitions in fire regimes (spanning fires vs. penetrating fires) based on terrain morphology. The structure consists of a 2-scale network using site percolation and SIR epidemiology rules in a cellular automata to model local fire Dynamics. The target area for the application is the region of Serra de Ossa in Portugal, due to its wildfire incidence. The study considers the cases for a Moore neighbourhood of warm cells of radius 1 and 2 and also considers a heterogeneous terrain with 3 classes of vegetation. Phase transitions are found for different combinations of fire risk for each of these classes and use these values to parametrize the resulting landscape network.
ISSN:2227-7390
2227-7390
DOI:10.3390/math10040588