Child of Fire Ecology with Pine Beetle Kill

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WHAT IS IT?

This project simulates the spread of a fire through a forest with respect to Pine Beetle kill impacts and wind conditions. This is an example of a common feature of complex systems (specifically within the Rocky Mountain Region). This visualization can help students understand and see the relationships between excessive beetle kill and fire ecology connections.

HOW IT WORKS

The fire starts from the center and spreads to neighboring trees. The fire can spread based on wind conditions and beetle kill presence.

The model allows for wind condition and beetle kill manipulation of variables. So, the fire must have trees along its path in order to advance. In order for the fire to spread, beetle kill trees must be neighboring. While the fire spread to 3 out of 10 green healthy trees in this targeted environment. In addtion, the fire will not spread in unwooded areas (patch), so such a patch blocks the fire's motion in that direction.

HOW TO USE IT

Click the SETUP button to set up the trees (green) and fire (red on the left-hand side).

Click the GO button to start the simulation.

The DENSITY slider controls the density of trees in the forest. (Note: Changes in the DENSITY slider do not take effect until the next SETUP.)

The BEETLE-PERCENT slider controls the amount of beetle-kill trees present the system.

The WIND-DIRECTION, GUST-STRENGTH, WIND-STRENGTH, WIND-DIRECTION-VARIABILTIY, FIRE-BREAK-WIDTH sliders control the directions of wind in the system, the gust strength, wind strength, the variabilty of wind direction, and breaks in fire spreading respectively.

THINGS TO NOTICE

When you run the model, how much of the forest burns with respect to the other variables. If you run it again with the same settings, do the same trees burn? How similar is the burn from run to run? Hows does increased beetle-percent impact rate of spreading (we counted through the number of ticks as a unit of time).

THINGS TO TRY

Students can use the model to answer these following questions: a. What happens if all variables are set to lowest condition/level? b. How does wind direction and strength impact fire spreading patterns? c. What happens as the percentage of beetle kill increases? d. How is the rate (based on number of ticks) of fire spreading impacted by increased beetle kill, alone? e. How is the rate (based on number of ticks)of fire spreading impacted by wind speed and direction, alone? f. How is the rate (based on number of ticks)of fire spreading impacted by both high beetle kill and wind strength? g. How could this model/program be improved? h. How can computer modeling help fire & forest ecologists?

EXTENDING THE MODEL

Wind conditions could be improved upon - feel free to edit and modify this Model. We would appreciate feedback and comments on how to make this model more effective and accurate to simulate real-ecological systems.

NETLOGO FEATURES

Unburned trees are represented by green patches; burning trees are represented by turtles. Two breeds of turtles are used, "fires" and "embers". When a tree catches fire, a new fire turtle is created; a fire turns into an ember on the next turn. Notice how the program gradually darkens the color of embers to achieve the visual effect of burning out.

The neighbors4 primitive is used to spread the fire.

You could also write the model without turtles by just having the patches spread the fire, and doing it that way makes the code a little simpler. Written that way, the model would run much slower, since all of the patches would always be active. By using turtles, it's much easier to restrict the model's activity to just the area around the leading edge of the fire.

See the "CA 1D Rule 30" and "CA 1D Rule 30 Turtle" for an example of a model written both with and without turtles.

RELATED MODELS

Percolation
Rumor Mill

CREDITS AND REFERENCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest-fire_model

HOW TO CITE

If you mention this model in a publication, we ask that you include these citations for the model itself and for the NetLogo software:

Belardo, C., and Nicholas, K. (2015). NetLogo Fire Ecology with Pine Beetle Kill Model. http://modelingcommons.org/browse/one_model/4289
Bryant, C. (1997). NetLogo Fire model. http://modelingcommons.org/browse/one_model/2802
Wilensky, U. (1997). NetLogo Fire model. http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/Fire. Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
Wilensky, U. (1999). NetLogo. http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/. Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

Commercial licenses are also available. To inquire about commercial licenses, please contact Uri Wilensky at uri@northwestern.edu.

This model was created as part of the project: CONNECTED MATHEMATICS: MAKING SENSE OF COMPLEX PHENOMENA THROUGH BUILDING OBJECT-BASED PARALLEL MODELS (OBPML). The project gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation (Applications of Advanced Technologies Program) -- grant numbers RED #9552950 and REC #9632612.

This model was developed at the MIT Media Lab using CM StarLogo. See Resnick, M. (1994) "Turtles, Termites and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds." Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Adapted to StarLogoT, 1997, as part of the Connected Mathematics Project.

This model was converted to NetLogo as part of the projects: PARTICIPATORY SIMULATIONS: NETWORK-BASED DESIGN FOR SYSTEMS LEARNING IN CLASSROOMS and/or INTEGRATED SIMULATION AND MODELING ENVIRONMENT. The project gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation (REPP & ROLE programs) -- grant numbers REC #9814682 and REC-0126227. Converted from StarLogoT to NetLogo, 2001.

Comments and Questions

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Click to Run Model

globals [
  initial-trees   ;; how many trees (green patches) we started with
  burned-trees    ;; how many have burned so far
  on-fire         ;; how many trees are currently on fire
  fire-break-orientation ;;the orientation of upcoming fire-breaks
  beetle-trees    ;; how many trees have been infested with beetles
]

breed [fires fire]    ;; bright red turtles -- the leading edge of the fire
breed [embers ember]  ;; turtles gradually fading from red to near black

to setup
  clear-all
  set-default-shape turtles "square"
  ;; make some green trees
  ;;KEEP - all of our trees in forest
  ask patches with [(random-float 100) < density] 
    [ set pcolor green ]
  ;; identify number of beetles in forest ecosystem
  ask patches with [ pcolor = green]
    [if (random-float 100) < beetle-percent [ set pcolor brown ]]
  ;; make a column of burning trees
  ;ask patches with [pxcor = min-pxcor]
  ;  [ ignite ]
  ;; select a random point in trees for burn source - for now center of patch
  ask patch 0 0 [ ignite ]
  ;; set tree counts
  set initial-trees count patches with [pcolor = green or pcolor = brown]
  set burned-trees 0
  set beetle-trees count patches with [pcolor = brown]
  reset-ticks
end 

to go
  if not any? turtles  ;; either fires or embers
    [ stop ]
  ask fires
    [ ask neighbors4 with [pcolor = green or pcolor = brown]
        [ ignite ]
      set breed embers ]
  fade-embers
  set on-fire count patches with [pcolor = red]
  tick
;;end

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; we removed these [upper and lower lines]

;;to go
  fire-break
  if not any? turtles  ;; either fires or embers
    [ stop ]
  consume
  fade-embers
  tick
end 

to forty-five
   set fire-break-orientation 45
end 

to horiz
  set fire-break-orientation 90
end 

to neg-forty-five
  set fire-break-orientation 135
end 

to vert
  set fire-break-orientation 180
end 


; Creates a fire-break, 30 units long and fire-break-width units wide
; If the wind is blowing, the fire-breaks is automatically built
; orthoganal to the wind.  Otherwise, it is build in the direction specified
; via the user interface buttons.

to fire-break
  if mouse-inside? and mouse-down?
  [
    if wind-strength > 0
    [
      set fire-break-orientation wind-direction + 90
    ]
    
    let width-rpt fire-break-width
    print width-rpt
    let length-rpt 30
    
    let start-patch patch mouse-xcor mouse-ycor
    repeat width-rpt
    [
      let l 0
      repeat length-rpt
      [
        if is-patch? start-patch
        [
          ask start-patch 
          [let next-p patch-at-heading-and-distance fire-break-orientation l
            if is-patch? next-p [ask next-p [ set pcolor red - 4]]
          ]
        ]
        set l (l + 1)
      ]
      
      if is-patch? start-patch
      [
        ask start-patch [set start-patch patch-at-heading-and-distance (fire-break-orientation - 90) 1]
      ]
    ]
  ]
end 

to consume
ask fires
[
  ;; if there is wind, blow an ember in the direction of the
  ;; wind, according to the strength
  ifelse wind-strength > 0
[
  ;; get the direction, taking into account variability
  let dir (wind-direction + (((random wind-direction-variability) * 2) - wind-direction-variability))
      
  ;; get the wind strength, taking into account variability
  let str (wind-strength + (random gust-strength))
      
  ;; Verify that we are landing the ember on a valid patch
  ;; If so, ignite it
  let p patch-at-heading-and-distance dir str
  if is-patch? p
[
  ask p [ if ( pcolor = green and random 10 < 3 ) [ ignite ]]
  ask p [ if pcolor = brown [ ignite ]]
]
      
  ;; burn local forest, taking into account wind direction
  let dir-min wind-direction - (45 - random 10) ;
  ;; if dir-min < 0 [set dir-min 360 + dir-min]
  let dir-max wind-direction + (45 + random 10);
  if dir-max > 360 [
  set dir-max dir-max - 360
  set dir-min dir-min - 360
]
  ask neighbors with [pcolor = green or pcolor = brown]
[
  ;; if this patch is within our direction window, then burn it
  let corrected-dir towards myself
  ifelse corrected-dir >= 180
  [ set corrected-dir corrected-dir - 180 ]
  [ set corrected-dir corrected-dir + 180 ]
        
  if (corrected-dir >= dir-min) and (corrected-dir <= dir-max) [ignite]
]
]
[
  ;; burn local forest, in all directions if there is no wind
  ask neighbors4 with [pcolor = green or pcolor = brown] [ ignite ]
]
    
  set breed embers
]
end 

;; creates the fire turtles

to ignite  ;; patch procedure
  sprout-fires 1
    [ set color red ]
  set pcolor black
  set burned-trees burned-trees + 1
end 

;; achieve fading color effect for the fire as it burns

to fade-embers
  ask embers
    [ set color color - 0.3  ;; make red darker
      if color < red - 3.5     ;; are we almost at black?
        [ set pcolor color
          die ] ]
end 


; Copyright 2015 Christina Belardo and Kali Nicholas 
; See Info tab for full copyright and license.

There is only one version of this model, created about 9 years ago by Mike Borowczak.

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Parent: Fire Ecology with Pine Beetle Kill

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