Combining GIS and forest fire simulation in a virtual reality environment for environmental management

Abstract

Millions of hectares of forest are destroyed by fire worldwide each year. In order to prevent this ecological and economic disaster, the efficiency of brushwood clearing operations has been proven. It is especially important around urban areas where human lives and properties are at risk. However in France, even if such operations are imposed by the law, it is not always followed in practice especially due to a lack of information. In this paper, we propose a tool designed for pedagogical and decision making purposes to demonstrate the benefits of brushwood clearing operations. Our application allows to simulate and to visualize a fire spread on real areas under different brush-clearing conditions graphically defined by the user. The core of our application is a 3D visualization of a fire spread model combined with a Geographic Information System (GIS).