The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) has been established by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Directorate General for Environment (DG ENV) of the European Commission (EC) in close collaboration with the Member States and neighbour countries. EFFIS is intended as complementary system to national and regional systems in the countries, providing harmonised information required for international collaboration on forest fire prevention and fighting and in cases of trans-boundary fire events. However, one missing component in the system is a wildfire behaviour model able to cover the whole Europe. We propose a new general conceptualisation for wildfire prediction. It relies on an array-based and semantically enhanced (Semantic Array Programming) application of the Dynamic Data Driven Application Systems (DDDAS) concept, so as to predict spread of large fires at European level. The proposed mathematical framework is designed to simulate with an ensemble strategy the wildfire dynamics under given sequences of actions for controlling the fire spread and updated data- driven information. First results on data and software uncertainties associated with the problem have been presented with a real case study in Spain

Abstract. Wildfires in Europe -especially in the Mediterranean region -are one of the major treats at landscape scale. While their immediate impact ranges from endangering human life to the destruction of economic assets, other damages exceed the spatio-temporal scale of a fire event. Wildfires involving forest resources are associated with intense carbon emissions and alteration of surrounding ecosystems. The induced land cover degradation has also a potential role in exacerbating soil erosion and shallow landslides. A component of the complexity in assessing fire impacts resides in the difference between uncontrolled wildfires and those for which a control strategy is applied. Robust modelling of wildfire behaviour requires dynamic simulations under an array of multiple fuel models, meteorological disturbances and control strategies for mitigating fire damages. Uncertainty is associated to meteorological forecast and fuel model estimation. Software uncertainty also derives from the datatransformation models needed for predicting the wildfire behaviour and its consequences. The complex and dynamic interactions of these factors define a context of deep uncertainty. Here an architecture for adaptive and robust modelling of wildfire behaviour is proposed, following the semantic array programming paradigm. The mathematical conceptualisation focuses on the dynamic exploitation of updated meteorological information and the design flexibility in adapting to the heterogeneous European conditions. Also, the modelling architecture proposes a multicriteria approach for assessing the potential impact with qualitative rapid assessment methods and more accurate a-posteriori assessment.

No abstract

Abstract. Wildfire information has long been collected in Europe, with particular focus on forest fires. The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) of the European Commission complements and harmonises the information collected by member countries and covers the forest fire management cycle. This latter ranges from forest fire preparedness to post-fire impact analysis. However, predicting and simulating fire event dynamics requires the integrated modelling of several sources of uncertainty. Here we present a case study of a novel conceptualization based on a Semantic Array Programming (SemAP) application of the Dynamic Data Driven Application Systems (DDDAS) concept. The case study is based on a new architecture for adaptive and robust modelling of wildfire behaviour. It focuses on the module for simulating wildfire dynamics under fire control scenarios. Rapid assessment of the involved impact due to carbon emission and potential soil erosion is also shown. Uncertainty is assessed by ensembling an array of simulations which consider the uncertainty in meteorology, fuel, software modules. The event under investigation is a major wildfire occurred in 2012, widely reported as one of the worst in the Valencia region, Spain. The inherent data, modelling and software uncertainty are discussed and preliminary results of the robust data-driven ensemble application are presented. The case study suitably illustrates a typical modelling context in many European areas -for which timely collecting accurate local information on vegetation, fuel, humidity, wind fields is not feasible -where robust and flexible approaches may prove as a viable modelling strategy.