Overall Research Project Description The propagation of wildland fires is a complex process that couples fuels, topography, and atmosphere conditions. One way to understand the spread is to employ computer simulations that model the different processes. However, all models include assumptions about the physics and parameter values, influencing the simulated data. It is critical to understand the relationships between these model choices and the simulations.

The project will start with learning to run a simplified Matlab fire spread code. Once the student is comfortable with executing the code, they will apply statistical methods to analyze individual simulations and ensembles of simulations. This will require running large numbers of simulations and developing code to perform the statistical analysis. Finally, the student will potentially incorporate additional physics into the fire spread model such as different fuel and plume models. There is also potential that small-scale measurements of fire spread will be made in the field.