Abstract
A stochastic model based on a combination of the cellular automata approach for forest fires and a random walk for firebrands and hot gases has been further developed and used to simulate the Marshall fire, Colorado, December 2021. Typical heat release profiles for burning wooden houses from the literature were used to distill information on the burning duration and ignition delay time needed to model the hours-long firebrand emission from wooden buildings in the Marshall area during this fire. In addition to information on vegetation and housing structures from in-person inspection, satellite images were used to estimate various model parameters. The results give reasonable predictions for the extent of the fire and its time evolution. A parametric analysis further highlighted the sensitivity of predictions to the parameters used in the model and suggested areas for improvement. The very low computational cost of the model, ease of operation, and acceptable accuracy suggest that the proposed framework can be used for operational decision-making and damage assessment.
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