New automated mapping approach has potential to revolutionize fire suppression, research from UC Berkeley shows
As increasingly severe wildfire seasons deplete fire service resources, researchers at the College of Environmental Design propose shifting from reactive firefighting to a proactive, risk-informed strategy using a novel computational approach that helps anticipate fire movement before it happens.
PhD candidate in Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning Minho Kim, with Professor of City & Regional Planning Marta Gonzalez and Marc Castellnou of the Catalan Fire Service, has published a paper detailing a breakthrough method that moves beyond current “hot spot” tracking to provide fire agencies with an automated method for strategic suppression.
The paper, “Modeling Potential Fire Spread Polygons and Networks for Suppression Strategies,” was published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
The system builds on the Catalan Fire Service’s approach to fire management of drawing fire potential polygons to plan suppression tactics. To streamline this process, the paper proposes using fire spread simulations and a hydrology-inspired approach to:
- Automatically generate strategic polygons on the landscape that define areas of potential fire spread, mimicking the critical tactical boundaries fire analysts manually draw.
- Connect these polygons into a spatial network, visualizing key fire spread pathways and highlighting critical chokepoints where resources can be deployed most effectively.
Applying this method in the field during two wildfires in Catalonia, Spain, during the 2024 fire season was crucial in helping the fire service gain precious time and save vital resources for safe and effective firefighting. In the wind-driven Ciutadilla fire, the network approach successfully identified high-risk polygons and fire pathways that closely aligned with actual, on-the-ground suppression actions. For the Vilanova de Meià fire, proactive tactics and leveraging prescribed burns significantly delayed fire progression, whereas reactive tactics provided minimal benefit.
This work offers a significant, immediate upgrade to wildfire management, helping fire crews anticipate the “bigger picture” of a fire’s trajectory and transform their approach to meet the challenge of a changing climate. The aim is to implement smarter, risk-informed decision-making to avoid uncontrollable fires that could lead to catastrophic damage.
This research was funded in part by the Lau Grants for Just Climate Futures at the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley.