Wildfire spread simulation and visualization in virtual environments

Abstract

Wildfire spread is a complicated phenomenon that affected by many factors, such as terrain, vegetation, and weather conditions. This paper presents a wildfire-spread simulation and visualization method. A simulation system was developed based on OSG(Open Scene Graph) and FARSITE (Fire Area Simulator). The system can visualize a realistic 3D wildfire scenario considering the influence factors. Wildfire is rendered by particle system, while LOD(Level Of Detail) and curve morphing technique are used to animate the flame and smoke under conditions of slope and wind. During the propagation of the procedural wildfire, the appearances of burned plants are changed automatically. The wildfire spread is visualized according to the calculations from the wildfire simulation engine. The users can not only manage the objects such as fire lines, fire-fighting vehicles and water-bombers, but also assess the damage. Keywords-Wildfire spread, 3D visualization, OSG, FARSITE, virtual environment I. INTRODUCTIONEvery year, wildfires cause huge damage around the world. In order to prevent and reduce the damage, scientists have developed various wildfire spread models for the wildfire behavior simulation and spread prediction. These fire models have been incorporated into many wildfire simulators, which can be divided into two types(vector-based and raster-based). Vector-based simulators which follow the idea of elliptical wave propagation[1] have accurate results, but they are complex and time-consuming in simulation. FARSITE[2] that developed by the Department of Agriculture of the United States is the most famous vector-based wildfire simulator. It incorporates a number of fire models including Rothermel's surface spread model and Van Wagner's crown fire model [3]. In comparison with vector-based simulators, the raster-based simulators which propagate fire through some set of rules across a uniform grid[1] implement easier and faster, but their results are less precise. FlamMap is a popular raster-based fire spread simulator, which assumes that the entire landscape is ignited and computes the spread characteristics for each cell of the terrain [3].The wildfire simulators advance in the fire behavior simulation and spread prediction, however, most of them visualize the wildfire simulation by two-dimensional(2D) images. The 2D images are difficult to realistically simulate the wildfire and the influence factors. Nowadays, the Virtual Reality(VR) technology can offer a better way to visualize

A SWOT Analysis of the Field of Virtual Reality for Firefighter Training

“…The incorrect simulation of fire would lead to a completely inaccurate training on how to extinguish it and potentially have life threatening consequences. Fire spread in different environments needs to consider a multitude of different factors influencing it, which has resulted in a large body of work covering, among others, the spread of fire in industrial facilities (Dedov et al, 2017 ), earthquake emergencies (Lu et al, 2017 ) and forest fires (Yun et al, 2011 ; Huang et al, 2016 ). A system developed by Moreno et al ( 2014 ) does not only simulate spread, taking into account factors such as wind and flying embers, but also approximates the use of firebreaks and extinguishing agents on the spread of fire.…”