Under the NASA MIRO FIELDS Program (lead by Prof. Bahram Mobasher), our Department has developed GridFire.
GridFire is a web-based fun, interactive, and educational tool that allows students to better understand the actors behind the spread of Californian wildfires. Behind the scenes, GridFire uses archival weather station and satellite data, advanced algorithms and physics on fire spread to simulate wildfires in the San Diego area.
Students are able to change temperature, humidity and wind direction of a historical Californian wildfire, and try to stop it from spreading, while understanding the underlying components that make wildfires worse or easier to spread. The tool has already been tested with over 300 students in the Inland Empire area with great success.
You can test a sample of the simulation here.
GridFire was developed by graduate students Jeanette Cobian and Trevor Arp under supervision of Dr. Mario De Leo-Winkler. The project was funded through the NASA MIRO FIELDS program.