Validation of a physics-based fire spread model and simulation method on a large wildfire accident

An operational wildland fire model need to be robust and accurate. In this study, a physical model of fire spread is presented and used to perform simulation with an asynchronous method. The aim of this work is to provide an efficient simulation method capable of providing resutls in less than a minute and a resolution of a few meters using a physical model. The proposed simulation software is validated on a reanalysis of a fire accident occurred in south of France in 2005. The use of a physical model enables to build a confidence interval for the simulation results based on the uncertainity on a physical parameter. The proposed simulation method and fire spread model performs well in obtaining these results in a very quick simulation time, while still performing high resolution calculation necessary to take into account precisely roads, non uniform wind and elevation data.