Model Description
This project models a forest fire. Two versions of the project were created; the first uses AgentCubes, and the second uses JavaScript and the AgentModel.js library.
The Story
Burning trees change into burnt tress with a percent chance. If a healhy tree is next to a burning tree, with some percent chance, the healthy tree will into a burning tree. A counter counts and graphs the number of Healthy, Burning, and Burnt Trees.
Extension
Firefighters move randomly vertically on the world and do not move horizontally at all. If a Firefighter is next to a healthy tree, with some percent chance, the healthy tree will be cut down. If a Firefighter is fully surrounded by Burning Trees, then the Firefighter dies. Healthy trees are randomly distributed on the world. A broadcaster broadcasts the value to the agents. The purpose of the fire firefighters in this models is to create a fireline which will create a line that will prevent the fire from spreading to other trees on a certain portion of the forest.
Firefighters move randomly vertically on the world and do not move horizontally at all. If a Firefighter is next to a healthy tree, with some percent chance, the healthy tree will be cut down. If a Firefighter is fully surrounded by Burning Trees, then the Firefighter dies. Healthy trees are randomly distributed on the world. A broadcaster broadcasts the value to the agents. The purpose of the fire firefighters in this models is to create a fireline which will create a line that will prevent the fire from spreading to other trees on a certain portion of the forest.
Agents and Shapes
| Agent | Shape | Color |
|---|---|---|
| Tree | Healthy | Dark Green |
| Tree | Burning | Red |
| Tree | Burnt | Black | Firefighter | Firefighter | Yellow |
| World | Light Green | |
| Counter | Pink | |
| Broadcaster | Orange |
Observed Behaviors
The fire will burn most of the forest down on the right side of the fire line but the fire does not cross where the firefighters made a fire line. Sometimes the fire dies by itself before it reaches the fire line created by the firefighters.
Nearest-Neighbors Burning
To ensure that only the nearest neighbors burn, we used the check and change attributes to allow the burning trees to check for a specific value and then change the certain healthy agents that possesed that value to burning as well.
Conclusions
After analyzing our models we have come to the conclusion that chopping down trees to stop the spread of a forest fire is an effective method. It stops the fire’s spread by creating a barrier in its fuel supply.