Wildfire Spread Simulator

What you just saw

Fire spreads from cell to cell based on the neighbors that are currently burning, modified by wind direction, wind speed, and humidity. A small ignition can sweep the whole landscape when conditions are dry and windy, or stall out when vegetation is sparse or humidity is high. The shape of the burn front tells you where the wind is blowing.

The science behind it

Cellular automaton wildfire models go back to the 1980s and are still used in operational risk assessment (FARSITE, FlamMap). The model here is a simplified version of a wind-driven fire spread rule: transmission probability to neighbor cells depends on fuel moisture, vegetation density, and the alignment of wind direction with the fire front.

Try these experiments

1. 1. Calm day

   Settings: wind_speed=0 humidity=0.6

   What to look for: Round burn pattern, slow spread.

2. 2. Firestorm

   Settings: wind_speed=30 vegetation_density=0.9

   What to look for: Strong directional burn — fire runs downwind.

3. 3. Natural firebreak

   Settings: vegetation_density=0.45

   What to look for: Fire hits bare patches and dies out. Large unburned islands appear.

from scirouter import SciRouter
client = SciRouter(api_key="sk-sci-...")
result = client.simulation.run(
    model="wildfire",
    params={"grid_size": 1000, "wind_speed": 15,
            "vegetation_density": 0.7, "humidity": 0.3},
    steps=500, seed=42,
)