A tool for simulation and geo-animation of wildfires with fuel editing and hotspot monitoring capabilities

FLogA (Fire Logic Animation) is a set of methods and an interactive, Web-based, user-friendly software tool which allows the user to draw a forest area on the map anywhere in Europe, insert fire ignition points, generate on the fly all input data layers required for a wildfire simulation, and then simulate and animate the behavior of the evolving fireline under different weather conditions. FLogA utilizes only publicly available non-proprietary data, software libraries and Web services. It adopts a distributed, open, service oriented architecture that is easy to maintain and extend. Wind, as the most dynamic parameter affecting a wildfire's behavior, can be sampled around a reference direction and speed value reported by the closest METAR station, to generate multiple simulation scenarios. FLogA generates informative interactive geo-animations of simulation results with color representing a fire property of interest, such as the flame length or the forest cells burn probability, while the terrain of the forest in the background may be colored according to a characteristic of the forest (e.g. elevation, land cover, etc). Geo-animations allow the user to “fly-over” any part of the affected terrain as the fire is progressing. In addition, FLogA offers drawing tools for editing the forest's spatial properties (e.g. change fuels, define cleanings zones etc.) to generate alternative “what-if” simulation scenarios. Furthermore, it can be set to automatically monitor any European forest area and trigger fire simulations as soon as “hotspots” are posted on the Internet by satellite services.