Specification of Discrete Event Models for Fire Spreading

The fire spreading phenomenon is highly complex, and existing mathematical models of fire are so complex themselves, that any possibility of analytical solution is precluded. Instead, there has been some success when studying fire spread by means of simulation. However, precise and reliable mathematical models are still under development. They require extensive computing resources, being adequate to run in batch mode but making it difficult to meet real-time deadlines. As fire scientists need to learn about the problem domain through experimentation, we also need that the simulation software to be easily modified. We used different discrete event modeling techniques to deal with these problems. We have qualitatively compared DEVS and Cell-DEVS simulation results against controlled laboratory experiments, which allowed us to validate both simulation models of fire spread. We were able to show how these techniques can improve the definition of fire models.