Computational modeling of extreme wildland fire events: A synthesis of scientific understanding with applications to forecasting, land management, and firefighter safety

Recent models bidirectionally couple computational fluid dynamics models including weather prediction models with modules containing algorithms representing fire spread and heat release, simulating fire-atmosphere interactions across scales spanning three orders of magnitude.

Integrated with weather data and airborne and satellite remote sensing data on wildland fuels and active fire detection, modern coupled weather-fire modeling systems are being used to solve current science problems. Compared to legacy tools, these dynamic computational modeling systems increase cost and complexity but have produced breakthrough insights notably into the mechanisms underlying extreme wildfire events such as fine-scale extreme winds associated with interruptions of the electricity grid and have been configured to forecast a fire's growth, expanding our ability to anticipate how they will unfold.