Wildfire Modeling

Wildfire Modeling#

The wildfire model can be imported using the following command

[TSC+23]

from IPython.display import display, HTML
import plotly.graph_objects as go
import plotly.io as pio

pio.renderers.default = "notebook_connected"

from erad.models.hazard import FireModel, FireModelArea

An instance of FireModel is a list of affected areas with each FireModelArea mapping the following pareameters.

  • affected_area: The timestamp of the wild fire event

  • wind_direction: Direction of the wind

  • wind_speed: Average wind speed in the area

from datetime import datetime

from shapely.geometry import Polygon
from gdm.quantities import Angle

from erad.quantities import Speed

fire_affect_area = FireModelArea(
    affected_area=Polygon(
        [
            (-120, 36),
            (-121, 36),
            (-121, 37),
            (-121, 367),
        ]
    ),
    wind_speed=Speed(50, "miles/hour"),
    wind_direction=Angle(45, "deg"),
)
fire_model = FireModel(
    name="fire model",
    timestamp=datetime.now(),
    affected_areas=[fire_affect_area],
)
fire_model.pprint()

FireModel(
    name='fire model',
    timestamp=datetime.datetime(2025, 10, 28, 17, 35, 1, 838558),
    affected_areas=[
        FireModelArea(
            name='',
            affected_area=<POLYGON ((-120 36, -121 36, -121 37, -121 367, -120 36))>,
            wind_speed=<Quantity(50, 'mile / hour')>,
            wind_direction=<Quantity(45, 'degree')>
        )
    ]
)

An example of the FireModel can be built using the example() methods for testing purposes.

fire_model = FireModel.example()
fire_model.pprint()

FireModel(
    name='fire 1',
    timestamp=datetime.datetime(2025, 10, 28, 17, 35, 1, 861616),
    affected_areas=[
        FireModelArea(
            name='',
            affected_area=<POLYGON ((-120.93 36.601, -120.911 36.602, -120.911 36.571, -120.934 36.581...>,
            wind_speed=<Quantity(50, 'mile / hour')>,
            wind_direction=<Quantity(45, 'degree')>
        )
    ]
)

Building from historical events#

Erad allows users to build fire models from historic wild fire events as well. The from_wildfire_name class method can be used to build fire models representing historic events.

fire_model = FireModel.from_wildfire_name("GREAT LAKES FIRE")
fire_model.pprint()

FireModel(
    name='GREAT LAKES FIRE',
    timestamp=datetime.datetime(2023, 4, 19, 19, 14),
    affected_areas=[
        FireModelArea(
            name='',
            affected_area=<POLYGON ((-77.046 34.949, -77.047 34.949, -77.047 34.95, -77.047 34.95, -77...>,
            wind_speed=<Quantity(-999, 'mile / hour')>,
            wind_direction=<Quantity(0, 'degree')>
        ),
        FireModelArea(
            name='',
            affected_area=<POLYGON ((-77.085 35.031, -77.085 35.031, -77.085 35.031, -77.085 35.031, -...>,
            wind_speed=<Quantity(-999, 'mile / hour')>,
            wind_direction=<Quantity(0, 'degree')>
        )
    ]
)

Plotting Wildfire Model#

fig = go.Figure()
fire_model.plot(figure=fig)
display(HTML(pio.to_html(fig, include_plotlyjs="cdn", full_html=False)))
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