Optimizing Wildfire Treatment Using Spread Simulations

In 2025, 186,544 acres of New Mexico land burned from wildfires. These fires pose risks to the neighboring ecosystem and humans. Water runoff after a fire can have debris like ash in it, which leads to clogged gills of fish and a lack of oxygen that kills fish and other aquatic life. Additionally, the burning plants in a fire release nitrate, and if that nitrate gets into drinking water it can severely harm humans, including risks of cancer. Our project question is; if a wildfire is spreading and there are limited resources to treat it, which areas would be most crucial to treat to minimize the fire’s spread? We will model this by first building a grid with each square made of different environments. For example, one of the squares might be drier or more dense with vegetation than the other. We will also model other potential variables like the terrain slope and how strong/which way the wind blows. Using this grid we will see how simulated wildfires spread when we treat different areas. This will tell us which areas should be prioritized when fighting against wildfires. Then using this grid we can start a simulation of a wildfire and then see how much the fire spreads when we treat different areas. This will tell us which areas should be prioritized when treating wildfires.