Simulating wildfires backwards in time from the final fire perimeter in point-functional fire models

Fire propagation models simulate wildfires forward in time from a set of ignition locations, but are usually unable to be used backwards if only a final fire perimeter is available. This approach is useful to search fire ignition points, reconstruct past fire events, adjust fire simulators and other purposes. This study proposes three different algorithms: a short time range backwards in time simulation from the perimeter, a statistical analysis related to the likelihood of a fire ignition location over the domain, and an analysis aiming to multiple ignition locations. The methods presented are fast to be solved and may be used with any empirical fire propagation model as a core engine as long as the ROS is locally defined and the model is not coupled to the weather. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.