John W. Daily, University of Colorado Boulder, The Conversation
As wind-driven wildfires raced over Los Angeles in January 2025, fire-spotting equipment and computer models aided firefighters in understanding the quickly shifting environment.
Although technology has progressed over time, certain approaches remain quite similar to those utilized more than a century ago.
I’ve spent several decades researching combustion, particularly wildfire behavior and the equipment used to track fires and predict where they might spread. Here’s a quick overview of the primary technologies used today.
Spotting fires faster
First, the fire needs to be discovered.
Wildfires are frequently reported by people who observe smoke. That has not changed, but other approaches to detect fires have evolved.
In the early twentieth century, the newly founded United States Forest Service constructed fire lookout towers across the country. The towers were topped by huts with windows on all four walls, which served as living quarters for fire lookouts. The technique was inspired by the Great Fire of 1910, which destroyed 3 million acres in Washington, Idaho, and Montana, killing 87 people.
Before satellites, fire workers searched for smoke from fire towers throughout the national forests. K.D. Swan, United States Forest Service
Today, cameras monitor numerous high-risk areas. California has over 1,100 cameras checking for smoke. Artificial intelligence algorithms continuously analyze photographs to deliver data to firemen, allowing them to respond rapidly. AI is a technique for training a computer software to identify recurring patterns, such as smoke plumes in the event of a fire.
NOAA satellites combined with AI data analysis produce notifications over a larger area. They can detect heat signatures, map fire perimeters and burned areas, and monitor smoke and contaminants to determine air quality and health concerns.
Forecasting fire behavior
Once a fire is discovered, one of the first tasks for firefighting crews is to predict how the fire will behave so that their limited firefighting resources may be deployed most effectively.
Fire managers have seen a lot of fires and understand the threats their communities confront. Today, computer simulations incorporate data about the geography, burning materials, and weather to predict how a fire would develop.
Fuel models
Fuel models are based on the ecosystem involved, with fire history and laboratory experimentation. Chaparral, a shrubland with dense, rocky soil and extremely combustible vegetation in a Mediterranean climate, accounts for a significant portion of wildland fuel in Southern California. Chaparral is one of the fastest-burning fuels, and flames can spread quickly in this terrain.
Human-made structures are a little more complicated. The materials used to build a house, such as wood siding, and the environment surrounding it, such as its proximity to trees or wooden fences, all influence how frequently and how quickly it burns.
How scientists investigate fire behavior in a laboratory.
Weather and Terrain
Terrain is also essential since it influences local breezes and fire spreads faster uphill than downhill. Terrain data is widely available thanks to satellite photos and may be easily integrated into computer codes.
Weather also influences fire behavior. Fires require oxygen to burn, and the windier the weather, the more oxygen available to the fire. High winds can also cause embers from burning plants to be blown up to 5 miles away, resulting in spot fires that spread swiftly.
Today, massive computer models can predict the weather. Global models encompass the entire Earth, while local models cover smaller areas with higher resolution and more information.
Both give real-time weather data for use in fire behavior simulations.
Modeling How Flames Spread
Flame-spread models can then predict the movement of a fire.
Scientists develop these models by examining previous fires and conducting laboratory experiments, which are then coupled with mathematical models that incorporate fire physics. These simulations, which use local terrain, fuel, and real-time weather data, can assist fire managers predict how a fire will behave.
Examples of how computer modeling can predict fire spread. American Physical Society.
Advanced modeling can take into account fuel features such ground-level plant growth and tree canopies, including the amount of cover, tree height, and tree density. These models can predict when a fire will reach the tree canopy and how this will impact the fire’s spread.
Forecasting helps, but wind can change fast
All of these tools are available to firefighters through computer apps and can assist fire teams as they respond to wildfires.
However, wind can quickly change speed or direction, and new flames can start in unexpected areas, so fire managers must be prepared for a wide range of outcomes, not just the ones they see on their computer screens.
Finally, during a fire, firefighting strategy is dependent on human judgment, informed by experience, science, and technology.
